Rockets Media Day! Multiple High Profiled Guest Join The Show Ahead of the 2025-2026 NBA Season.

Rockets Media Day! Multiple High Profiled Guest Join The Show Ahead of the 2025-2026 NBA Season.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross Channel three
at h Town Tenno. Three. What they what are those
boys doing before us? I'm fine with it. Yeah, that's right.
Good morning and welcome to the Bat Tapas Show with
Ross Toto seven. I don't care. It's all good. They

(00:20):
make more money than we do, so that's I learn that. Sorry,
Hey Rossie, good morning to you. Hey Matthew, how are you?
We're good. We are inside of the Toda Center in
the bowels. If they as you, they would say, uh,
where we are here for Rockets Media Day twenty twenty five,
Dash twenty twenty six. I did lent Jonathan are a

(00:42):
great producer who's been with us Scott how Low many
months now. I don't know how many more. We don't
know at this point, but we weint him here as
long as possible. Absolutely, we've trained it well. Stop trying
to boot good people out. Well, I think it's finances
to do it more than me. But that's a different
issue for a different time. You're not helping, uh, But
today is a little bit of our tur jerky day
in terms of we try to keep to a broadcast

(01:04):
clock that's going to be out the window at least
for a couple of hours today as we get hopefully
many many of your favorite Houston Rockets and including the
brand new one today. Kevin Durant's gonna stop by it
for a few minutes. Woo Rockets media Day. Nothing else,
as far as I know, going on in Houston. Sports
not a thing. So we will not get in and
we will obviously focus a lot on the Rockets, but
there are the things that get to well, matter of fact,

(01:25):
we'll do that right now before some of the rocket
folks start to come in. Texans yesterday shut out the Titans.
You were there in Battle Red Jersey. I was very
proud of you. Good family photo there, follow him on
ig at Sportsman. Look at this. I thought you'd like
to thank you, Matt. And the first half was as
pitiful of a football game as you will find in

(01:47):
the National Football League. Well, the Texans had the Titans
right where they wanted exactly what is defensive battle. They
were halfway to a shutout and got the full shutout. Yes,
Texans were bad yesterday. I know there's a lot of
Texans water carriers that are just like, oh, this is
the greatest thing ever. Now look the second half was
much more fluid than the first, and things got going
and CJ had his best game productivity wise, at least

(02:08):
at wise protection wise. First half was not great, second
half was significantly better. But breakout game for you know
who who called it last week? Woodrow Marko. Actually he's
not a Woodrow Wood. He is the nickname. Yeah, I
don't remember his name. I think something regular like Greg
Greg Marx was fantastic for the Texas yesterday. I'm sorry.

(02:29):
Joe Quavius okay, i think Wood's significantly better, Joe Quavius,
Dick Kane de Kwane, We'll just call him Woody. The
Titans are awful. I mean, cam Ward not good. Pollard
was decent, but there was any receivers getting separation. The

(02:49):
defensive line was there for a while. In fact that
CJ was running for his life a lot of that
first half, but one thing settled down. That's a bad
football team. And as much as it pains me to
see every once in a while, Rossie, those Tennessee Titan
Super Bowl videos because they went that one year when
they left, shortly after leaving town, Yes, that's a hot Mason.
That's a hot mess of a franchise. The only thing

(03:12):
guy going for him is a brand new stadium. Other
than that, I wasn't overly impressed with cam Ward, not
that I'm ready to. I don't particularly care how his
career goes. But that's a bad organization with head coaching,
head scratching moments, play calling changes in week number four,
which is on a great sign. They change out general
managers and coaches like you and I changed underwear. Their

(03:35):
owner is horrific. I mean, it's just bad. Their coach
didn't know that one elbow down constitutes a catch in
the NFL, which is one of the most basic rules.
Shin's elbows, knees, head, nose, all of it. One day
of red zone again comes up like five times. Yeah,
and by the way, I'll be brutally honest with you.
Once it got to I think nineteen nothing, I went

(03:56):
red zone the rest of the way because I knew
that Tennessee wasn't going to score. Well, uh, well you
might have known it, but Texans took care of business.
They were seven point favorites and they won by twenty six.
They took care like, yes, it's a bad team, but
also Texans have struggled with bad teams. Texans have had
issues with bad teams before, so I still I'm not
gonna call it like the most impressive performance of all time.

(04:17):
But to go out there and take care of business,
I thought was obviously a step in the right thing.
I think the University of Tennessee is better than the
Tennessee Titan. I think the volunteers would have put up
a much more of a professional good Yeah. Uh so
we will dive into that probably a little bit more
tomorrow and Winson obviously getting ready for Sunday's game with Baltimore,
which now seems possible to win. Lamar Jackson a wasn't

(04:40):
good in the first half against Kansas City and then
he got hurt hamstring, making it right now and not
that anything should worry about how Vegas feels about anything,
but right now the game is off the board because
they don't know about the situation. Yeah, give me Cooper
rush for four quarters and the Texans have a chance
to win in Baltimore. Let's go, baby. See, you never
know in the NFL L you never know. Guys are
getting hurt left and right. It sounds like the initial

(05:02):
diagnosis they were thinking one to three weeks I think
they said with Lamar Jackson and will you never know
what the with a with a hamstress. So if there's
ever a time for the Texans to go to Baltimore
and win this ROSSI will be a must win situation
here we go. You have to be in five their
first of all are one in three. You have to
be Cooper Rush. You just have to you know it too,

(05:24):
it'd be nice. Okay, uh Astros finishing up the season yesterday.
I'll ask this question because I already know the answer.
How much of the game did you watch? I watched
zero pitches? Me too, Okay, Game one sixty two when
it doesn't matter, doesn't get my time. I was so
happy in the red zone in the second half of

(05:45):
the of the in the three o'clock games that I
just because it didn't matter. And I know that landspeck
Culters did pitch yesterday gave you three innings Astros and
a bunch of bombs six to the final score. But
four k's and nine whiffs and three innings pretty solid.
From as He's ready man, ready to bounce. Listen to yourself,

(06:06):
Listen to yourself, try try to sell that to the city.
You didn't believe me, did you? I didn't believe it either,
not a word. Uh, it's funny. I I was on
the channel to last time on Supports Sunday, and uh,
Randy mc or were yeah, Oh wow, good for you.
Why are you laughing, Gordy? Why Gordy's laughing? Gordy never

(06:30):
gets invited. That's why he's mad. He's just always mad
at you. No, he was on Zoom, I was gonna
drive away, short off, and then I was on there twice.
And now you come back. It's fine. Aout me, and
you know I wanted you to be on there. Give
you some more run. Now, I'm good. I was drunk,
that's don't. Don't tell Randy that he's listening right now.
That's fine. Randy knows the deal. I was tailgating, no
getting to the Texans. I'm talking about you and John.

(06:50):
I thought you wouldn'tdrunk on the show with him. Oh no, no, no,
I mean I was. I was drinking yesterday. Oh he
called you first, No, he didn't call. I don't mind
being second fiddle. I'm okay. You know I'm on the
back up of the backup. That's fine. He calls me
about thirty minutes before you gotta come on because somebody
cancel on them. I'll go, yeah, that's not true. We
will get that fixed. By the way, happy birthday to
Randy yesterday, who turned I won't say, that's up to

(07:12):
him to tell you how old he is. So, by
the way, speaking birthdays, it's a happy birthday to Kevin Durant.
It is his birthday. For the real birthday today, Oh wow,
is he thirty eight? Now I'll let you ask you okay,
I mean, okay, so he's thirty seven. So we will
dive into some lots of astros conversation as well today
because again, just a real not a gut punch, but

(07:35):
just an utter sense of disapointment. I was watching Texas
and Cleveland play Saturday, before the Astros of the first pitch,
my pregame show was over with by the time that
Garcia for the Rangers hits the Cleveland Guardian with the
bases loaded to win it for the Guardians, who, by
the way, are your American League Central champions fifteen and
a half back and win the AL Central because the

(07:55):
Tigers literally back toward their way into the playoffs because
of Unfortunately, the astro is not doing what these utility Yeah,
not that the astros deserved it. They didn't earn it.
It was at their feet, yep was there wasn't their
hashtag earn it one of those years. I thought it
was win win win root. Oh, okay, that'd be fun
if it was win win win. Thinks if they use

(08:16):
that next year, there'll be another bit steal. They stole
my crush city for me to be win win win
next year. Built for this. What's next year? Massive changes coming?
Elbow discomfort. We hope to stay healthy. There's a variety
of things we can go with Tommy John. No not,
let me tell you something. We're not gonna utter the
term Tommy John surgery under any circumstance at all. Next year,

(08:37):
you okay? With that elbow strain?

Speaker 2 (08:38):
All right?

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, remember the term it was discomfort. We don't even
see discomfort anymore. It's just flat out owl inflammation. A
little wordy for a hashtag. All right, Well, quick before
we get to the break, whend urrant comes on, or
you can be able to keep it together, I will see.
I don't know. I think I'll be fine because let
me tell you, there's a handful of athletes that they
walked in right now. You know, like I was, we
said Nolan on a weekly I was Jello. Yeah, I

(09:03):
mean I was a hot mess when he means my
favorite picture of all time. Your questions were worse than normal.
You know what? That was unfair, Joan first tr Mommy's
rude has been to me so far. I don't even
know what else I said? What else did I say?
I don't know. We'll figure it out. We'll keep We'll

(09:23):
do an air check of the show, of course, I kid,
but I mean I'm trying to think in the history
of you and I working together, no one for me.
I don't think we've ever had Earl Campbell on the show.
We've had a Harden none in Westbrook. And remember we
were worried about Westbrook, mean surly and he was pleasant, no, no,
But Kevin Durant's different. I'll be frankly honest with you.

(09:46):
You watch athletes from Afar and you're amazed by them.
And now I'm gonna be with him, you know, hopefully
calling eighty you know, or how many games he plays.
I don't care if he's one of the however, you
want to order it ten to twelve at worst, fifteen
best hoopers to ever walk the planet. Yeah, I mean
the next I mean, we've had some great ones come
through here. Chris Paul will be one of the greatest

(10:08):
point guards ever to play. Harden Westbrook. I mean, we've
we've done, We've talked to them all, but it'd be
I guess the next person on the list that I
would have the interview would be probably Lebron and that's
probably not gonna happen. Only think it would be a
Houston Rocket untill the time, well he placed till the
fifty's we got a shot. I mean, I don't know
how how you may would feel about that, but that's
you know, can get along. Yeah, it's all about winning,
right all right? Seven one three two one two five

(10:30):
seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven
nine zero. We are here. We will be taking calls sporadically.
We'll try to go out the phone numbers when we
think we've got some spots. But if you just want
to sit back and listen today, that's okay too. Again,
so much to get two on the Texans, so much
to get into on the Astros, and of course our
Rockets media day coverage here, which will feature all. I
believe many of the heavy hitters that you will want

(10:50):
to hear and see this season on Sports Talk seven
ninety right, can't wait. We kind of need it, don't we.
It'd be nice. Texans are bouncing back. They're gonna win Sunday.
They gotta win. Cooper Rish is playing gotta win, absolutely
must win. And we've got a new halftime guest, not
a halftime a halftime show announcement from the super Bowl today. Yeah,

(11:10):
it's your favorite. You got all his hits. If you said, Matt,
I will give you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
for every Bad Bunny song you know, you would be
still stuck with your two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Uh, well,
you wan going to tell you that something funny? Please?
I would be in the same spot as Really, I
recognize some of his songs. I don't really know Bad Bunny.

(11:32):
We got a pull question up right now, and that
is on the website or the Twitter account that's sports
MT and that is Bad Bunny answers there. They could
be something in between Bad Bunny can't Wait twenty two percent.
I'll watch something else seventy eight percent now, what about
I'll check it out. There's no I'll check it out. Answer, Well,

(11:54):
I mean I think can't wait it would be in the
same category. No, I'll check it out. It doesn't mean
I can't wait. Well, how about this minds or is
I'll check it out. I'm gonna check it out. Okay,
good see me? Because I mean, how many times there's
been a lot of musical accidents Super Bowl that I've
just kind of said, I know, good, but I'm gonna
sit up there. I'm not gonna go like change a
channel to like HGTV. I want to watch the halftime.
You see what the puppy balls looking like?

Speaker 2 (12:15):
All right?

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Twelve ten fifteen Matt and Ross with you til two
o'clock here on Sports Talk seven ninety. That's one Rossie,
Oh I haven't. Oh no, you know what you want.
You're saying, are you going to do a second one?
I'll say yes, let's give a second one too. It's
really more like one and a half. Okay, And it

(12:39):
doesn't revolve around the astros. I mean you word about
that you did have me worried. Cam Robinson has just
been traded, okay, okay, he just got signed in the
off season, Yes he did, going to the Cleveland Browns
and a swapach of late round draft picks. According to
multiple sources, relief for the Texans. That's good. I guess. Mmm,

(13:09):
how's Arianta Ursery looking apparently significantly better than they thought
because he's playing and Cam Robinson's not and now you're
moving him for Oh, Titus Howard only had two holding penalties?
How many?

Speaker 3 (13:18):
We was?

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Is he taking over the lead for most penalties on
the offensive line? It's been laring me tons over the
last few years. Oh yeah, nobody's going off sides every
five seconds, I mean a fat or legal motions or
delay of games and all that kind of good yuff.
I have no opinion how that whatsoever to say that.
When Cam Robinson doesn't play, he probably said, look, I'm
a veteran, get me out of here, and they said, all,
I'll find you somewhere to Yeah, they they signed him

(13:41):
before they drafted Arianta Ursery. Is kind of like an
insurance policy. Right, Well, Ursery beat him out and is
playing better, and so they're gonna go with him, and
that's good. I'm down with it. Whatever, save a little
bit of cap space and well, hope your guys that
you do have stay healthy because if somebody did go down,
some depth of Cam Robinson would be nice. But I
understand why the Texans are making the movie they're making.

(14:01):
I'm not overly familiar with the Tennessee Titans defensive line.
But how about that climb over Jake Andrews or the
first half of the game. I mean, you were going
to hurt people. He got over zero point one off
the clock. Yeah, that was was the fastest ever. That
was the fastest sack in the history. It felt like
the fastest sack in the history of And you know
what I told you this on Farning You got mad
at me. What did he tell me? I was like,

(14:22):
I'm worried about c. J. Stroud. Yea, there were three
times in the first half that he was like lumbern
around you. You said he was gonna get hurt and
he was fine. Finished the game. I think he's fine.
You think he's he finished the game. You think you
walk up this morning going it's a bright set, shiny day.
Man's got beat, he's getting some he's getting some treatment,
but he's all right. It's the NFL. Maybe nobody's one
hundred percent. Lamar Jackson iss not one hundred percent. Joe

(14:43):
Burrow's not one hundred percent. J J. McCarthy's not h
hered percent. Whoever else, who else has hurt these a
lot of quarterbacks. Oh, Jadon Daniels was hurt. For me,
it was one hundred percent. It's hard out there for
a pimp. By the way, did you see what Cam
Smith said the quote? No, I did not Cam warn

(15:04):
excuse man? Oh yeah, was that true? Is that a
real quote I saw floating around? I'm looking for the
audio of it. Okay, if we can find it, we'll
try to play it at some point because if we
find the audio of it, he would For those of
you who don't know, he's if he says, if we
keep it a buck, which means keep it a hundred,
if we keep it a buck, right now, we ask
I don't think he said that, because we would have

(15:26):
found it on our social You got it, it's gotta
be here, it is. Yeah, Oh, we got to get
that put in the system. Oh yeah, Ross is playing
off his computer right now. You know it's Jonathan. If
you can he said it, start, we could just start.
That's a drop on the show, right we talked about
the show or like, when our show sucks really bad, Jonathan,

(15:48):
you feel like you can play that anytime you want to.
My god, yeah, god, that was awful, awful, awful what
he said. But he's right, and they're terrible. I mean,
are they gonna win two games this year? Yes, I
guess it's hard to it'd be really hard to go
in seventeen. That's about right. Yeah, yeah, all right, So
that's what we got going on. I just sent it
to you John the Texans front. But that's it. And

(16:11):
that's just like ca a Rando drop in because we
were we've already got on our name segments, all locked in.
But keep it a buck, we asked. That's just I mean,
I give the I give the kid credit for coming
up with the Yeah, we get beat twenty six to
zero by a not very good football team. Hard to
feel good about it. Yeah, Were you surprised by the
number of empty seats in the building yesterday? Not exactly.

(16:32):
It was fairly empty to start. It did fill in.
I would say the bottom bowl was like eighty five
to ninety percent full by halftime. It's people got in
there late. I mean, it's I don't know, like it
just feels like that's just been the mo for for
tens crowds forever, forever. And it's funny because it's not
just Houston it does it. It's like Laker games. People

(16:53):
got to the Lakers games late. It was always leave late,
get there late, leave early, some city that had that reputation.
Uh we we had a chance to ask cam Ward
what he thought of all the empty crowd at the
stadium before, and here's what he.

Speaker 4 (17:06):
Had to say every day from interception to uh penalty
to an incompletion by me a bad ball.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
And then want to pass the tift we just not
continue the drive.

Speaker 5 (17:21):
So I mean, we're keeping a book right now, we asked, so.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
All right, So from now on, Jonathan, all want to
do is I want that little part there and you
can just drop that in. Maybe not today because we
don't want to be saying that today, but certainly we're
back in the studio tomorrow we could do some of that. Okay.
So back to what I was saying before, uh So
the crowd and I told you I kind of felt
like the the the the energy was gonna be a

(17:46):
little bit of an issue. Now you go be Baltimore,
this week, you gotta go to Seattle the following and
two weeks after that. I mean, it's a tough get
a tough little swing coming up here for the local
football squad. Yep. But as you said, things are breaking
their way. Maybe we'll see what's happening with the with
the Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson being out, that's that
can be winnable. And I look, I mean you're gonna
be dogs to the Seahawks and they're pretty good and

(18:07):
sam Donold has been playing well, but you have a
really good defense as well. I wouldn't say, I don't know,
just projecting whatever we think that spread would be. What
it be like, I don't know, five, five or six
Seahawks by that or something. I mean, that's that's a
winnable game. So you are the official handicapper of the show.
Would you like to tell me if Cooper War of
Cooper Rush's name, starting quarterback with the line should be
on the game giving Baltimore two points with sub Jase

(18:30):
Shawn I would say, yeah, maybe Baltimore. I would say, Okay,
let's think about this with Lamar Jackson with a good
Texans defense and just post a shut up. Probably still
about like seven and a half seven favorites somewhere around there.
You probably take a reshave off four or five points,

(18:51):
so ravens minus two and a half, okay, if you're
within one point, I'm gonna do donate twenty five dollars
two and a half for one and a half. Okay.
My favorite charity is the Ross Fund. I figured it
would be that, the Bill Real Foundation. I get that.
I figured as much, all right, seven one three two
one two five seven ninety. If you want to come
in and talk to us, we got a lot of
rocket stuff coming up in the next hour and a

(19:12):
half to two hours, so if you want to chime
in now, we'll get to some asterros. We'll come back,
just some general thoughts about not necessarily the season. We'll
do more of that tomorrow. Matter of fact, to Joe
Aspota and uh Dana Brown are both going to speak
tomorrow and their end of the year get together, so
we'll obviously had a chance to two on some of
what they had to say. But today is just more
of an initial thought about how the season ended, and

(19:33):
probably the most one of the more frustrating weeks and
astros baseball as the Astros and Tigers, Rossie wind up
being tied, but the Tigers win the tiebreaker. Seven. Yeah,
well that's all you gotta say. Seven one three, two
one two five, seven ninety. We're live in signed Tota
Center for Rockets Media Day coverage. As you listen to

(19:53):
Sports Talk seven ninety, Mann and Ross with you from
Tota Center. The media day events will kind of get
started in the next half hour or so, around eleven
o'clock and then should be pretty crazy already til Jonathan
He's going to lose whatever Harry's got left because of
the strange clock will be using. But that's fine, spoiling
due it's once or twice a year. This is probably

(20:14):
the busiest day of the year for the producer of
the show. Hard working Jonathan. Yes, after the show, huh no,
hair just no, I mean, I keep his keep as
long as you can, all right. Uh So I went
on and I mentioned I was on with Sports Sunday
on Channel two the other day, and uh Randy's like,

(20:35):
what do you expect for off season? And one of
the things he brought up to me was z that
cole mm hmmm, and he said, what did you think
of September Zach Cole, And uh, I said, do you
know what you gotta do? You have to uh? Oh,
there's the newest member of the Houston Astros media Wall
of Fame right there. That's right, Bill ll that's there. Dang,
how many walls of fame can you make? One man
be on? I'm trying to get on one. All right,

(20:56):
we're on the air. Bill. I know you don't. I
know you don't use a Michael phone anymore, but we're
I know he looks great for his late how old
he is? That's oh, back, he said, I said, you
don't read March numbers and September numbers this huh? And
so I think Zach should be given every opportunity to
get ready to be a part of the twenty twenty

(21:18):
six roster. But I just I tempered everything. I don't
I don't think September is off awesomeness all of a
sudden means he's going to be a forty homer hitter
next Yeah, we don't know, but we saw a lot
of power. You saw some encouraging signs. And it's not
only just the major league numbers in September. He was
also your Minor League player of the Year, which doesn't
always mean anything if we go down the list of
Minor League players of the year position players for the Astros, right,

(21:39):
but at least I hope will spring eternal for for
Zach Hole to be a contributor, because not only would
that be a fun story, you need the help in
the outfield, you do, and there's a spot open. I
don't know what the future of Hey, Whu Sanchez is. Frankly,
I don't know how much Jordan Alberta is non excuse me, sorry,
you want to get burped out of are you know?

(22:02):
Are you coming on Gretchen or are you taking taking
a part? She's hanging out or what's going on? She's
I was like, you know, her daughter wrote a book.
I didn't know that. That's what we're going to ask
her about. Okay, yeah, why not. I'm looking for at
least a commission check or something here on. This is
mentioned in the forward. She didn't ask me to write anything.

Speaker 6 (22:21):
She didn't ask me to write anything.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Gretchen Sheer is a president of business Operations for the
Houston Rockets. And your your daughter is my daughter's age
Riante seventeen? Correct? Yes, and she wrote a book.

Speaker 6 (22:32):
She did write a book.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Whose idea?

Speaker 6 (22:34):
Her idea?

Speaker 1 (22:35):
She said, mom would write a book.

Speaker 6 (22:36):
She had a school.

Speaker 7 (22:37):
Project where she did a research project and the teachers said,
this is a good framework for a book. And so
over the summer she turned it into a book and
asked zero help from her dad or from me.

Speaker 6 (22:52):
So and then they found a publisher.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Wow. And the name of the book, ironically, Ross is
I love the play by play voice of the Rocket.
I don't think that's that's what. That's a little wordy.
I don't want to share that one down.

Speaker 6 (23:03):
It's let's let I should know this.

Speaker 7 (23:06):
Let's talk about feelings a guide for teenagers, which is ironic,
perfect coming from Yeah, coming from her mother, who is
known for talking about her.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
So you're published.

Speaker 6 (23:17):
It's published on Amazon. Yeah, she did it by herself.

Speaker 7 (23:19):
She found a couple of things after the fact, so
they're going to do an updated copy.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
But yeah, so she's on a roll.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
So if you have any kids, and we have a
lot of adults that have daughters and sons listening to
the show, I'm assuming Amazon or yeah, you can find Yeah.

Speaker 6 (23:35):
I also have a son.

Speaker 7 (23:36):
By the way, she has a twin brother, he started
a little podcasting thing our job. No, he's like interviewing.
They did a volleyball interview this week. There's somebody I know,
John John Cooper.

Speaker 6 (23:50):
So of the off to Cindy links and you can
give him tips.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Well, maybe he can replace Ross eventually someday. That's yeah.
I don't think we can. I don't think everyone's contracts
her up. I'm just.

Speaker 6 (24:04):
Going in.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Exactly all right. Uh so let's get to uh the changes.
First of all, in the building, the seats are going.

Speaker 7 (24:15):
To eventually change, right, are eventually, yeah, and and uh
in about a month we will start the process. So
we're going to do it, and uh, we don't have
a lot of downtime, so as we have gaps between
games and concerts, we're going to start changing out the seats.
We'll start in the upper bowl and we'll work our
way through, so it'll take us about nine months or

(24:36):
so by so by next summer they will.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
All be Now that's what kind of changes.

Speaker 7 (24:41):
Uh So these are the original seats, So the new
ones will have like a more durable vinyl cover, their
black compewter weave, so the coloration will change. And the
most exciting part every single seat in the building in
the lower bowl and in the upper bowl have a
couple option, so all seats upstairs cup holders.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Nice. It's just a little bit big deal. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (25:03):
Now they're twenty three years old, so no springs, rosh.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
You don't know this, but we've gone to a lot
of arenas in the last couple of years and it
feels like God gretching about a third and a half
are always trying to fix something up. We've seen a
massive rebuild in Toronto, Phoenix. I can probably name four
or five others. You've been doing that as well. You
ultimately are going to completely revamp this arena, right, yeah, I.

Speaker 6 (25:25):
Mean over time.

Speaker 8 (25:26):
Right.

Speaker 7 (25:26):
We started with the technology and the video boards that
was big, and then now the seat so we're really
focused on kind of fan facing areas.

Speaker 6 (25:33):
First.

Speaker 7 (25:33):
We're doing a huge wastewater pipe project right now, super sexy.
But every off season we were doing something to make
sure that this building stays up and running, and we're
working on, you know, some bigger, longer term projects that'll
be coming in the next in the next couple of years.

Speaker 6 (25:50):
So we're excited about.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
And the crazy part is these arenas still have to
operate you still have to put memes on and concerts on.
So it's sometimes it's a little bit of a logistical
situation and it may not happen this year. Down the road,
we'll be making those few altered urations in terms of
our way to or path through our seats. Probably right.

Speaker 7 (26:05):
Yeah, just like when you're kind of reconstruct reconstructing a
team to build for the future, that's kind of what
the arena is. So like today, everyone's like, welcome back,
great to see you. I'm like, we've got thirty two
concerts since we saw you last. Like this building does
not does not stop. We'll have eleven shows in October.
So it's really busy and a puzzle piece and the

(26:26):
facilities team and our arena crew does a great job
getting it done while everyone else is asleep.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
And what is the what goes into those decisions? I
guess is what your is it to try and improve
the seats and all those types of things, because I
guess my simple brain is just like it works, it's fine,
the seats are good. We don't like what goes into
that is the decision making process, Like why what is
the why of trying to just continue to update everything
and make it better.

Speaker 8 (26:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (26:53):
I mean, for Tillman, the focus versus the fan experience, right,
So the video board and the technology and bringing you know,
the game to life was a huge priority. And the
seats are obviously dated, and so we are starting the
upper bowl adding a cup, adding the couple there was
a big was a big deal and a harder process
than one would think, just with spacing to make sure

(27:15):
that every fan in this building, regardless of where they
are seated, has the best amenities possible. So really kind
of the fan fan experience first, and then there's the
stuff that you have to do. Like we got a
new roof, right, Like that's amazing. The Toyota Center lights
are back on the roof. But that that was a
year long process because we did it while we were

(27:36):
hosting events. So there's the you know, the bones of
the building that have to stay in really good shape
and and our facilities team has done a great job
in order for us to be able to do the
fan amenity stuff as well.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
The most important thing people want to know is what
are we going to be eating this year in the arena?

Speaker 7 (27:54):
All of the figure they will I think you guys
will test some today, right, I was hoping.

Speaker 6 (27:59):
Yeah, yeah, No, there's the barbie.

Speaker 7 (28:02):
The barbecue station is getting updated, which is on the
north side outside of one point fifteen that we're very
excited about. They'll have they'll go through all of it,
and Leavy will do a great fair for you guys.
So I don't want to I don't want to spoil it.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
We don't caress.

Speaker 7 (28:18):
Yeah, the most important thing is what would be drinking,
and that is we Marguerita Monday's are coming back based
on so you know, you guys will get your you'll
get your good shirt that I know that you love,
and then we're going to have a signature cocktail that
I'm super excited about, like Red Rising. It'll come in
to a special cup. I'm a little bit obsessed with
the US opens, Honeyduce. So we're creating our own, our

(28:39):
own version. You're not allowed, you'll be working, but you
know after.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
For surest me, it's gonna be a busy time in here.
You've got NABA basketball coming in the building. It's gonna
be a lot of fun.

Speaker 7 (28:51):
So yeah, we have a game coming up, a regular
season game, and then we'll host the regionals otherwise known
as the Sweet sixteen uh in early mark and hopefully
we'll have some friends play.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, and hopefully this building will be really busy to
I don't know, early to mid June, somewhere in that ring.

Speaker 6 (29:06):
Great, that'd be great.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Now you have to clear those dates, right.

Speaker 6 (29:10):
The date booking is a puzzle is a puzzle piece
for sure.

Speaker 7 (29:13):
But yeah, the league, the league gives you the calendar
and then when you book a show, there's role dates
and there's a whole process that goes on.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Telsha care No, sorry, you can't be here in June ninth. Sorry,
very busy, very nice, you do halftime. That's true, all right, Gretchen,
thank you for coming by. Looking forward to a very
exciting season. And I'm assuming the Kevin Duran jersey sales
are going quite well.

Speaker 6 (29:35):
They they are pretty good. They're pretty good.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
You could you could put one hundred and fourteen on
them and it would be the people are over. But
what number he was gonna wear, It doesn't matter. Just
score thirty points and stay healthy. Right, that's right.

Speaker 6 (29:45):
Sounds good to me.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Thank you, Gretcha, your president of business operations with the Rockets,
with us here for a few minutes on the show
ten forty three is our time. We've got players and
coaches coming by. We are at media day coverage here
on Sports Talk seven eighty one. I was telling you
about Big City Wings today. They got a any special
ten dollars Any Burger with his side one fifty mikel
of Ultra draft between now and three o'clock, five to

(30:07):
fifty big bruise and six to fifty premium bruise. That's
what you got to do today, and then you can
go tomorrow and watch baseball not involving the Astros. ROSSI
checked out. I gotta be honest with you, and I'm
even deathly afraid to put us a poll question. We
don't watch non Houston sports. I mean, I think the
baseball playoffs will be epically not discussed on this radio

(30:29):
show unless there's something miraculous that happens, are amazing or
once in a lifetime situation. Uh, we'll see. Yeah, I'll
keep an eye on it. I guess. I mean Red
Sox Yankees is always sexy. Got the Cubs involved, you
have the Dodgers involved, You've got I mean, you got
all the heavy hitters. I mean, the Reds getting in
over the Mets probably didn't help out there much. But yeah,
Red's Dodgers doesn't sounds like a midweek series in June.

(30:54):
But they're petitioning for the Dodgers to play games at
eight am Pacific time. But you know, I'll pay attention.
Maybe when the World Series comes around, we'll see, ye,
so we'll see who I'm rooting against. Oh I like
to watch Johio Tani. I would say that, yeah, for sure,
he pitches. I want to watch for sure. All right, So, uh,
if Jim Crane pulls uh Dana and Joe into the

(31:18):
officers today, shut the door. But everybody's good spakeing sure.
My thought is this, I don't know if you call
a press availability for those two guys if they're on
the firing line. I agree. I mean I think Jim's
mulling it over. I mean he has he probably a
cavasi a and kind of thinking about things. But my
guess is I would say this, neither one of them

(31:38):
deserved to lose their job. No, I would agree. I
don't think they're having a celebration going, man, And we
just will run it back next year. And that's the
one thing I was telling the channel to the last
night is that you. I don't think running it back
is going to be the answer. You've got massive holes
in your starting rotation, you've got way too many infielders,
and you've got other outside things to I mean, you

(31:59):
have to figure out why this team had so many
catastrophic injuries and while the recovery process for so many
of those guys was slower than the average team. Now,
everybody is not built the same, yes, every you know,
some teams are gonna have more injuries than others. Look,
Arizona had a bunch of injuries this year because I

(32:20):
was talking about how bad the AFTRA situation was, and
the bunch of Diamondback fans came at me and said,
look at our lest so it can happen to other team.
In back, they had like six or seven guys on
the major league team have Tommy Johnathan. And the reality
is baseball today. I don't know if it's because of
the pitch clock, and if it's because of the spider
tack elimination. It could you know, it could be just
the pressure that these teams are asking their players to
put on off speed pitches. It's vlo and spin. The

(32:42):
emphasis on velo and spin is hurting everyone. Yeah, I
would say from a macro viewpoint of this, if you're
Major League Baseball, you should be concerned that so many
injuries are taking place. But I don't really care at
the squads. I want to talk about the Astros. Dodgers
had a lot of pitching injuries too. The hitting was
a major issue for this team this year. Now again,
when you're doing different lineups and you're putting guys higher
in the order than they probably should be. If jose

(33:04):
A tv is a number six hitter for a really
good baseball team, you don't necessarily worry about it. But
if he's a top three or top four guy, he's
seen his numbers drop. Christian Walker's runners in scoring position,
batting average probably to me would be an alarming thought. Now, again,
he did leave the team in home runs in RBIs,
but and it was really good away from Dykin Park,
But in the home ball park he was not very good. Yeah,

(33:26):
I'm not just trying to pinpoint him. Well, those two
guys you mentioned o the top and played appearance As
we were kind of talking about this, Carlos Korea finished
in your top ten and played appearances. He came over
a deadline day, Like, it's just you had a lot
of the injuries and the guys that you would have
liked to have next year. If Christian Walker's on this team,
you don't. You can't play them one hundred and fifty
four games at first, You can't. You can't play Jose

(33:47):
Al two A one hundred and fifty five games as
he's thirty five turning thirty six either. You had to
do those types of things out of necessity with all
the injuries, and it's just, yeah, you need to figure
out what's going on where you're playing those guys, both
of them, if Christian Walker A is on the team
and B where Jose L two is going to be
because you would like to d h him as much

(34:09):
as possible. But do you feel the same way about
Jordan Alvarez. Yeah, you've also got to figure out if
there's what to trade. I think you're one too heavy
in the infield for sure. And I was listening to
Sean and uh Dan this morning going coming in. They
they basically echo the same thing. I don't think. I
think the untouchables are al Tuo ve in Korea, every

(34:33):
in Albarez obviously L two A isn'touchable because of his name. Yeah,
I mean he's gonna he's going to retire in an
astro UNFM. I don't see any other way that's not
going to happen.

Speaker 9 (34:41):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Correa is still you know, you brought him over and
he he is not necessarily hard and soul, but he
is a glue guy. Does that make sense to you? Yeah?
And he was very good and he's very good. Didn't
power was not that what it used to be, But
I don't think it might expected that. But I think
parts could be up conversation. I think here, here's an

(35:03):
inn they brought up. I kick the tires on your
air ideas. Yeah, yardeas I think is it is it
because IF's ready or close to being ready, if you
re signed Kartini MLB pipeline doesn't end all be all.
They have Yanix timeline as twenty seven, but I think
they had you know, I mean they probably had that
timeline for cam Smith is twenty seven or twenty eight.

(35:25):
He came right up. So it depends. Yes, Ideally, this
is the problem. You have a lot of candidates that
you Christian Walker is your first baseman. Ideally you would
like to slide estak paratus over there if you're keeping
Korey and Pena and not ting trading either of those guys,
which I wouldn't say it's completely off the table, but

(35:45):
it's unlikely either of those guys get traded. And then
you would like to eventually transition Yanor Diaz to a
first base, but you only if you can only put
one guy it the at A three in your lineup
every day. So you got absolutely could find somebody who
wants to transition Yaner Diez to to first base slash
DH hybrid role, but you don't have room at DH

(36:08):
and you don't have room at first base. And Yaner
Diez isn't throwing guys out. He's not the greatest defensive catcher,
and three straight years his plate production has gone down,
and I do think that has to do with him
being an everyday catcher, because he wasn't that in the
minor league. And the reality is this, if you because
you want to move yan Or if you do, other
teams know the Sky report, and my guess is if

(36:30):
you're if you're a team that thinks Jannier Diaz is
a guy that can help you out, you bring him
to your team and you're probably converting him to first base.
I think you would do that, and I think fans
would see his production go up at the plate and
be like, how could you trade him away? And it's
and it's gonna be a situation where he wouldn't be
that guy here right catching him every day.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
So, uh, I think there is tremendous work to be
done by Dana. My guess is Joe will have to
make some staff changes. There might be one two. It's
funny you have two pitching coaches and two hitting coaches.
I don't know if that's the new trend in sports today.
Pitching has been spectacular, they're hitting not so much. Yeah,

(37:07):
So I think there's going there's going to be again.
The one thing I will continue to say is I
don't think Jim Crane is in the room going, hey guys,
if we don't have all these injuries, we're winning ninety
five games and we're runaway winners in American League West. Yeah,
but isn't that a true statement? Not runaway? But I
think they win the American League West. I would think.
I mean the way that Jordan came back after he's

(37:30):
been gone a hundred games. Look, like he was getting
back on that horse. Yeah, he's one of the best
five best hitters on the planet in my opinion. You
finished three games back in the Mariners. Three games back
been three games absolutely could have been, Yeah, for sure,
But I just I don't want them because here's the thing.
You're starting rotation right now. Tell me if I'm wrong,

(37:53):
guaranteed one or percent spots. You've got Hunter Brown one
and we're done. Christian Christian three, four, five. And you
never should go into the season just thinking about five,
because you know you want I'm using ten or eleven
or twelve. We're in the Astros case fifteen, you know
what I'm saying. I don't know. Could we see Mambermeldez

(38:14):
back in an Astro's uniform. I think we're gonna see
it happen late in the season. We're gonna see. And
they were talking about this morning too, Rylan Reese, Dylan Reese,
Dylan sees Dylan Ceese. Oh maybe he's They've they've been
after him for a couple of years now. That could happen.
He's a free agent. I think, yeah, you could sign somebody.
Everybody else's is who knows. You can't We love Jason

(38:38):
Alexander Xander and what he did. But deserves an opportunity,
deserves an opportunity. He'll be a question mark aj blue
Ball deserves an opportunity. But Lance is gonna have to
work his way. He's gonna have to go in like
he's nineteen years old looking for a spot. He does.
He's gonna be fighting for a spot. It's easier to
cut him off the roster when he only has one
year left. Correct, all right? Ten fifty seven. Where at
Rockets Media Day, we've got player and coaches coming by

(39:01):
to say hello to us. Between now and two o'clock
this afternoon, Gordy is going to peruse us. Also some
high leverage guests. He's already promised us at least one
big name guest between now and two o'clock that we
don't know you kN him know about, but actually, wow,
we've actually given him assignment. Will say that true. I
don't think and then you think I'll go up very
think he's.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Afraid of him.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Gordy's Gordy's chase, Chase give him such a hard time
a chase. Coorty, you're doing a great job. You don't
even have to be here right now. We love it.
We appreciate you. I'm sorry Matt gives you such a
hard time. It's a termament. Dear, thank you for being here,
Gordy ten fifty eight, second hour of the Matt Tabas.
Joel Ross is next year on seven ninety that Ross Whitney.

(39:41):
We come to you today from the Tator Center where
it is Rockets Media Day twenty twenty five. Forward should
be a very very interesting season. It'd be kind of
weird for us. We'd be here today thinking about the
Astros playoffs tomorrow and Wednesday probably the noon spot. But
that's not going to happen. Unfortun as their season comes

(40:01):
to an end yesterday with the game against the Los
Angeles Angels. Need him to go five and one? Ross,
they had gone, they had made the playoffs at five
and one. They had made the playoffs at four and two.
I gotta bring that up. That's a four hour radio show.

Speaker 8 (40:16):
Ow.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
I guess Cam Robinson got traded today? You okay with that? Sure?
Why not? Texans with a huge win because you are
a better Red Ross? Yes, massive win? Backs against the Wall,
must win the game, and they came out, They shut
out the mighty Tennessee Titans. They're not mighty at all.
They're basically a CFL team. They're not mighty at all.

(40:40):
But still, I mean, and I don't want to, you know,
act like they made some kind of statement to the
league or anything like that. But they went out there
and they took care of business. They were seven point favorites.
They won by twenty six, and there was it was
their first shutout in a long time, right, uh, third
ever shutout I think in franchise history. It doesn't happend.
I mean, yeah, look, even horrific teams score points to

(41:01):
shut somebody out's very impressive. And they did miss two
field goals though, right I believe you chuse less than fifties. Yeah, So,
I mean Clay on the for you tab, Clay Travis,
who lives in Nashville's obviously that's the game that he gets.
And he's like, oh this he is a Titans fan, right, yes,
and he's Titans Sports Radio before he went national. Yeah,
full political. He basically says that this game is awful

(41:24):
and that Beth Mowenes was the perfect narrator for this masterpiece.
How was Beth Moones? I was at the game, so
I didn't catch it. Okay, was it that bad? Look?
I don't know her, and she does a competent job.

(41:49):
It's just the voice. And there are you. There are
some people in this world that the people's voice is
just great on them. Okay, it's just a hard great
it's just a heard lessen Okay, but I mean, yeah
it is. And and Ross Tucker, I don't know if
he is having intimate relations with Nick Cassario, oh really,
but he had a statement in the first half of

(42:09):
the game yesterday. He's like, man, the Texans have so
much depth, they don't know what to do with their
offensive line. And I was like, what are you kidding? Well,
I guess he was right. They traded away camp Robinson
so much depth. I've never heard in my life in
the last three years covering the Texans depth and offensive
line in the same sentence. And it's not been happening
under Nick Cassario. But yeah, that was a little odd,

(42:33):
but it was. You know, Look, nobody watched the game,
and I mean it was the least scene of the
different CBS games, probably for a reason. New York City
was not clamoring for Tennessee. Houston put it that.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Way, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
And it also wasn't on red zone much. No, it wasn't.
So what I would do is I'd watch the game
on eleven and then would go over to the red
zone and watch, and nobody hit the red zone to
what what the second half? Well, it was the only
game that didn't have a touchdown in the first half,
and it took to the third quarter for either one
of the two teams that getting to the red zone.
You can't be on the red zone if you don't

(43:04):
get in the red zone, saying it's terrible. Woody Marks
hit the red zone, baby, So Rudy Marks and now
RB one now right right, I mean it'll be a split.
I mean, tell me what he did, what he did
to not deserve that opportunity, It'll be a split. And
then that's fine. Yeah, he out carried Nick Chubb, and
he out targeted him and out produced him. So Nick

(43:29):
Chubb is fine as a backup and split one two
a rookie just learning the job and taking over the reins.
And then a veteran guy who doesn't have much juice
in his legs but he's trying. And Nick Chubb, I
mean Nick Chubb's I think is it okay? I mean
he's fine. It's just he's a replacement level. He's replacement level. Yeah,
you can find somebody on the street that can give

(43:50):
you what Nick Chubb has done right right, and you
know what every team needs to have that. But if
I don't know if Woody Marx was thought to be
the main go to guy, frankly they were thinking about
Joe Mixon. Now is today? This is the fourth week, right,
so yeah, what's going on with Joe? My guess is
Dumika will be asked. I mean I would hope that
he'd be asked about the Joe mix an update, Joe

(44:10):
mix an update, But I don't think so, Okay, I
don't think there's enough people that particularly even care when
is his foot good to go? Is that was gonna go? Sure?
Why all right? That that? I mean that was that
was an impromptu So that's fine, thank you. Uh we
are here at Rockets some media day where the Rockets
can do all of us a favor of ROSSI by

(44:32):
just getting out to a very fast start. I've already
been on I've already been on a couple of radio
shows this year. They're like, well, what's gonna happen with
no Fred Vanbleen. I'm like, good, good question, men, Thompson. Now,
I don't know. My guess is that we're gonna ask
you me about it. Okay, he's gonna say it's fine. Well,
I mean he's gonna say, look, he's got a man.

(44:53):
He's like, come on here and be like, I don't
know what we're gonna do. It's over. No, he's not.

Speaker 5 (45:01):
Man.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Hope went thirty games. I will say this. You know
you're kind of teasing about that a little bit. I
am obsessed with AI press conferences after losses. Oh gosh,
you are, mister AI seeing more of those now, I
am obsessed with two ais. The baby's talking, Oh my god.
And I know that's weak on my part. I fully

(45:22):
admit that. But I'm also obsessed with when they bring
up when they added new comments to coach, like we
got totally a coach. My team played like, as can't
you know, Yeah, he's not gonna do any of that.
Cam Ward actually said that yeah, that was actually funny,
but it just to me it was It was one
of those situations that I just like, because there is
there is a I have a emay out there. Oh

(45:43):
there is, there's everybody out there. Ross haven't want it.
We're gonna try to get you AI, but it doesn't
show up on my for you. Well, it's because you're
a smart guy and don't look it for you on
the Twitter here, I I don't know I'm getting Mets
Mets stuff on my fort I didn't realize you were
such a big Mets face, Sonny, that makes sense. Why
am I getting l S used? Cordy must have been
on my on my account? Are you guys sharing an account?

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Manchester City stuff? Now that would be on my for
utub big five nothing. The big five to one win
over the five to one is like a seventy five
to thirty games right down, Maddy, speaking of big scoring games.
Uh forty, my gosh, forty to forty. Uh the the
buzz Rockets beat writer is here, Teresa is here. Sports
sports ball hashtag sports ball sports Tersa's our Twitter account.

(46:29):
You want to follow over Theresa's sports face. I believe
called I got you. I got you? Uh were forty
forty last night and I know you're gonna tell me
there are very few ties in the NFL. Okay, there's
still won too many ties in the NFL. I'm gonna
be honest with you. I fell asleep. I didn't watch
the end of the game. What happened. It was a
forty it was forty to thirty seven. Green Bay scores

(46:49):
a field goal late to tie the ball game. Okay, there,
so it's the first tie in three seasons. There was
no ties last year, right, no ties a year before, right,
so it's not been well, you know what it did though,
it did miss field goals or what happened. Uh, I
didn't watch much of the guy fell asleep. Okay, you know,
so I didn't. I didn't see my appearance on that
TV show. Okay, I can't say the name of it
because the guy you can't other stations in here, you know. Yeah,

(47:11):
you're a whore. You'll go anywhere. No, he called me,
I said, I'll do zoom. I don't like to do zoom.
I had to put a nice collared shirt on. Yeah,
I was normally I was in my underwear and T shirt.
I wasn't gonna even ask, yeah, because I didn't want
to know. But point being is just I don't like ties. Okay,
you know they're like you know what ties are, don't you? Wonderful. No,
like everyone where everyone wins, like kissing your sister. What

(47:34):
I knew you were gonna say. You heard that phrase before,
Jonathan Right, ties are like kissing your sister. I mean,
you'll do it, but it's not you're looking forward to it.
You know, you let something new every day. That's all
I'm gonna say. You know, it's funny. It's a popular phrase.
My wife did not hear that phrase until I said
it to her. I said, you know, ties are like
kissing your sister, and she's like, what are you talking about?

(47:55):
So you learned things every day accidentally, I would. My
phosphy is if you don't want, if you still want
to keep the Ties, make the overtime period fifteen minutes. Yeah,
but they they they shortened it for a reason. I
know they want to play going something called player safety.
I don't player safeties all the bad and hasn't come
into play that much. So it was only two drives,
two field goal drives in the whole game, is what happened.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Okay, if you're a fantasy fan of Green Bay or
do you Tallas, you did quite well for yourself. Yeah,
forty forty a peace, Yeah, woke up and give my
ask kit. It's great. By the way, the tarls off
to a four and oh start nothing of you asked
about to be one and four or one in three.
That's fine, all right. We are at Rockets media day
where we will have I believe revern Can we were riving.

(48:38):
We have Ryan players. They're gonna be on right he
coming or isn't it. Kevin will be here. Kevin Durant
will be here, is gonna come by, I believe him.
And Thompson will be here among whoever knows what's going for.
They're gonna show up that kind of it's a polple.
We definitely would like to get him in. Then here
his thoughts about taking over the reins YEP seven one
three two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven ninety eight, eleven sixteen on a Sports

(49:01):
Talk seven II will be visiting with Emadoka coming up
in a few minutes. Kevin Durant would stop by, men Thompson,
you know, I don't even know who else coming over.
That don't matter. We'll just talk to people, okay, and
get ready for the season. Yes, Rockets have two home
games first in the preseason before going on the road.
Usually it was last year flipped the ground. So uh

(49:22):
looking forward to own to Birmingham or anything like that. Going,
I am going to Birmingham. Actually, yes, Uhura should be fun.
I want if people even know what that accent was,
who that was? As long as you know, man, that's
it wasn't terrible. Yeah, Rockets will open up with two
home games and then two road games, and then we
open up on the year three weeks from tomorrow. Yeah,

(49:47):
the twenty first, the very first NBA game of the
season will be in Oklahoma City. We will be at
there at Ring Night when the Thunder get there under
unveiled the banner and win the championship. And it'll be
the very first game on NBC share their new television
deals coming into play, So spoiling Ring Night for Oklahoma City.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Let's go.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
I want to say this. I want to say visiting
teams have done a pretty decent job over the years
of ruining Ring. You keep saying that and I can't
refut it because I have no idea. But I will
have an answer for you tomorrow. Okay, good, because I
need to do a little bit of research. You are well,
I mean, it'll take me fun. I'm gonna say, I
figured you'd asked somebody to do it for you. Where's Gordy? Yeah, no,
there we go, gord I will do I will organically

(50:28):
by myself. Okay, I'll give you the last five openers. Okay,
we'll see how they did, all right, all right, if
you want to chime in, you can before those guests
start coming through it. Seven one three two one two
five seven ninety seven one three two one two five
seven ninety The Fred van Bleet situation obviously is a
massive downer, although you see you already had the surgery. Yes,
I'm gonna save gut feelings for tomorrow, but mine might

(50:51):
involve a Fred van Bleet tomorrow. Okay, just like is
in like a late May appearance. Well, I would be
am I more wishful thinking? Or am I that? Hopefully
the recovery process for these situations are a lot shorter
than they were in Well, it's October is in two days,

(51:12):
so let's call it the start of October. Normally at
least a nine months recovery, right, Okay, maybe I'm just
speaking this into I hope, So I mean, I want
you to be right, sports science. These days, guys come
back quick. Adrian Peterson came back in about three weeks
and felt like when he was. You know, the reason
why I'm hesitant to say this is because we've been

(51:33):
sitting there watching the Astros for the better part of
six months, and Luis garcias Alman took a lot longer.
Christian actually Christian Haavier was right on time, so that
wasn't necessarily a bad one. But who else, I mean,
there's been a lot of guys that have been a
lot longer. I mean, the shin injury for Kyle Tucker
lasted three months, the hand fracture lasted forever for Jordan Alvarez.
So maybe I'm I'm more of a bias towards than

(51:53):
I should be. But how's old Kyle Tucker doing for
the Cubs these days?

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (51:58):
How do you finish the season by the let's see,
one hundred and thirty six games, one forty three ops
plus career one forty Everybody said they hitting coaches with
the Cubs. Oh, they're the revolutionizing Kyle Tucker one hundred
forty career ops plus he had one hundred and forty
three with the Cubs. Sorry, so Thank you the digress,

(52:19):
Thank you for the Cubs hitting come three extra three
points is extra three points. That is absolutely right, that's
that's very rare. One seventy nine last year with the Astros.
Oh oh, I mean, can you imagine if if Joe
has to let one or two of them go? I
think they're gonna walk in there and go, what do
you think I would do with Zach short with Ramonaius

(52:41):
Cannon Hayes, who Sanchez can't is swinging out of his
shoes and has the worst wing decisions I've seen ever.
You're giving me Jacob Meltain, You want me to hit?
He's one of about three fifty. Come on, now, everybody's
say they're gonna say, hey, everybody's got to be a
fall guy. It issued you the best. It is obviously
point about who the roster is. There's now, well what
do hitting coaches? Your people could be saying, well, what

(53:02):
do you bring? Even hitting coaches a mix? You know
it's it's your fault, but we're gonna we're gonna finish
the point. Uh, they are they they do are They're
supposed to detect nuances, They are supposed to detect bad habits.
But if you're expecting at the major league level for
hitting coaches to turn somebody into a career like Taylor
Tremmell is never going to hit thirty bombs. Uh, he's

(53:23):
never gonna have an ops above eight fifty. No. Now,
if you do get something that like that, then that
that player can then say, well, thanks to this guy
seeing what I did on video or I mean, look,
the number one thing that Alex Pregnant used to always
tell me is I'm gonna be the one that's gonna
fix my issues. I'm gonna be the one that's gonna
stare at the video. I'm gonna be at the one
that's gonna to see what I've done in previous years

(53:44):
when I was more selective and better at the play
than I have been during this particular slump. I mean,
Christian Walker came here and regressed. That's a fact. His
anchis came here and he regressed from where he was.
That's a fact. But I mean, it's it's it's a
mixed bag, and I'll see what happens. Kyle Tucker will
wish him the best with the cups. I'm wishing him

(54:05):
to have a very very fortuitous.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Postseason.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
For those of you who don't know, Ross and I
have two bats on this and it ultimately is gonna
cost me about one hundred bucks. Oh baby, that would
I had that fried Rice? Okay, so fried rice and
a couple of carraps five dollars is the is the
It's the fried Rice extra track, a couple of sake bombs.

(54:31):
You might as well enjoy yourself. I'm about the uber.
Can you get my uber to the Can you get
my uber to the I'm not playing for transportation. There's
only a certain amount of this bat. Can you pick
me up? Oll the way? So Ryan Hounds and I
go to this hibachi place in Denver and they squeeze
the sashi saki into your mouth. Yeah, the guy squirted

(54:53):
it in your mouth. Yes he did. Thank you. We'll
see you on Friday. I hope not. I'm just pointing
the things out.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
About this.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
How did you feel afterwards? How about those Texans one
in three, nice bounce back, winnable game over the weekend.
So you said it's still off the board, right, Well,
it could change. I mean my guess is it will
be off the board until at least Wednesday, because they'll
be the first time that the NFL will have to

(55:29):
require the Ravens that give his an injury report. Yeah,
I mean it's it doesn't if he left the game
and it's a hamstring, I would imagine that he's not
gonna be So it was funny because I was watching
Red Zone when he got pulled, and who's the anchor
that does the Red Zone Scott Hanson. Scott Hanson. Now,
when I was watching Red Zone five years ago, I

(55:50):
was Andrews c Cilliani. Well, he would do it on
uh direct TV because he would tell you which channels
to turn to and stuff. It's funny they would use people, Yeah,
because Scott Hanson was the generic for people that didn't
have direct TV because he's not gonna if Ciciliana is saying,
turn it to channel seven oh one or whatever, yeah,
it doesn't help anybody.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
So he's like, I wonder if he got benched, because
that's what he really foun He's like, man, the are
the Ravens giving up this early? And then like two
minutes later he says, well, CBS is reporting he's got
a hamstring injury. Oh okay. By the way, he did
not speak after the game. I would say, injured players
not speaking after the game. It's some somewhat kind of

(56:27):
it's it's up to them kind of. It's not the
most If he just had a bad game and didn't speak,
that would be bad. But if you're also injured and
left the game, m hm, it feels like that's fairly common. Well,
put it this way. The Ravens were down seventeen when
he got hurt. Okay, so he wasn't having that. They

(56:47):
weren't having a good game. They couldn't stop anybody. Okay,
so maybe he could be back, maybe he could have played,
but they were just losing so much. No, no, no,
I think it's a serious injury. I just think that
it was. My point was, I don't think Lamar Jackson
was all of a sudden making this a model of
model game. Pat mahomes that is game in a couple
of years. I was gonna take a miracle comeback. Yeah
what Yeah, So I don't know. Maybe again, if you're
gonna catch the Ravens at a bad time, this is

(57:08):
the absolute best time to get some.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
At a bad time.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Wow, it was nice. You put that on a T
shirt if you'd like, I would love to. Well, So
things are looking up and yeah, I was trying to
see if I see it on the board, but I don't. Yeah,
it's it's off the board. If you can go one
in one between Baltimore and Seattle back to back row
games with an off week in between, I would take
that up out of the Texans. By the way, the

(57:33):
Colts should still be leading this division by three games.
They absolutely get literally gave one away a d Mitchell.
Mitchell d first of all, makes this incredible catch. Yes,
sprinting down the left sideline about to score to give
the I think that that point the Colts a two
touchdown lead. I think it was tied and it would

(57:57):
have been one touchdown lead to think, I think, but
it could be wrong. Regardless of what it is, he's
going to the end zone. He's going to make this
incredible grab. He does so, and then he extends his
arm out a little bit, whether it's a showboat, whether
it's in a showboat, and he goes ten to thirteen.
It would have been made at seventeen to thirteen. Okay,
so we're gonna watch the replay here it is so,

(58:17):
by the way, Daniel Jones sow's this really great catch
he gets around two defenders, he's at the thirty, the twenty,
the fifteen, the ten, the five. He reaches out and
fumbles the ball. I'm gonna look at the give you
the exact yard line at the one touch back to
the Rams from a no touchdown, from a touchdown to
a loss of possession and no points and the Rams

(58:41):
come back late to win the game. That's a shame.
That is a shame. What are these receivers ever gonna learn? Seriously,
how many more like this? How many more times are
they going to be told? You need to have I
don't need to go high school football coach on you,
but somebody needs to sit them down, and everybody, everybody
in on your team. Do not celebrate. You can celebrate

(59:03):
all you want after you hand the ball to a referee,
Go hand the ball to a referee. If you just
made that rule to where you can't do anything, or
we're gonna, I don't know, we're gonna find you, or
we're gonna we're gonna suspend you for a series. Hand
the ball to a referee, and then do whatever you want.
You can do cartwheels, backflips, you can do choreography, whatever
you want, to do, just elend the ball, the ball

(59:26):
to a referee with two hands, maybe because he was
gonna hate head. I know, I also hate too. I
hate when guys diving to the end zone too. You
never know what could potentially the times guys lose that
ball too. Yes, all right, quick time out. We're at
the Tota Center for Rockets Media Day. This is Sports
Talk seven ninety Matt Cross with you here at Tota

(59:47):
Center for Rockets Media Day twenty twenty five. We are
joined down by the head coach of your Houston Rockets,
he Maydoka with us. I would say, how's your summer?
It was great for the most part, right, little little
R and R and then then Fred and all, but
that thing's been pretty good, right.

Speaker 8 (01:00:02):
Yeah, overall a good summer in a lot of ways.
I've seen a lot of growth from our guys, and
obviously I'll be on the big stage and some additions
and so overall happy.

Speaker 10 (01:00:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:00:12):
The injury obviously puts a little bit of sour tastes
in your mouth going into camp, but we have enough
on our roster. We'll figure out how to get it done,
and we have the versatility to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
We'll get to that in a second, I do want
to ask you about the trip to Turkey he played
in the ar the euro leagu Championships right as what
they call it? What is that competition like? And what
have you seen? Forgetting about that tournament, but just what
have you seen from Alpi's offseason that has you so
bullish on him for again this year?

Speaker 8 (01:00:38):
A tremendous amount of work he put in behind the
scenes and obviously that showed on the big stage. Continued
growth and this trajectory has continued to go up from
what I've gotten here. He's growing in every area. Obviously
made it to All Star Game, helped us achieve what
we did last year, and had great carry over into
the summer into his work ethic and wanted to be
better and a great EuroBasket tournament. So want that all

(01:01:01):
to kind of culminate into a great season here and
him continue to grow and do what he's done last
few years.

Speaker 10 (01:01:06):
And I think he's on the right path for that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Is he physically much different or the kind of the
same body right now.

Speaker 10 (01:01:11):
I think his conditioning was a lot better.

Speaker 8 (01:01:13):
You know, you're playing kind of year round, and what
he did and what he had to do and shoulder
the load and carry a lot of the load for
that team. He had to be in tremendous shape. And
the physicality they play with over there, Like I said,
all that should carry over well into the season, but
it looked like no fatigue. He had a lot on
his shoulders and then obviously delivered a high level.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
How collaborative is that is? How much is that you
talking to him and tell him things you want to
see from him, or him doing things.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
On his own a little bit of both obviously.

Speaker 8 (01:01:42):
You know, after the season you talk about areas of
growth and going into your workouts in the summer, and
then the staff that was over there with him for
a month plus they're working on specific things and then
the national team used them a certain way as well,
and so there are some similarities and the things they've
done and that we've done with him, and so you know,
it's not not familiar for him to do, but you

(01:02:03):
see things on both sides. The things he worked on
obviously carried over into this with this national team, and
some things they do you can implement.

Speaker 10 (01:02:10):
Here as well.

Speaker 8 (01:02:10):
And so the bottom line is he's a young guy
that's growing at a at a rapid pace, and he
was rewarded with the All Star appearance last year, and
we want him to take another step this year.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah, is there like constant contact or you try to
be more hands off. How do you approach that?

Speaker 8 (01:02:23):
Yes, both, it's it's your Like I said, the staff
is there with them. You know, a majority of the summer.
I went over for four or five days and just
kind of kind of, you know, checked them out and
spent time with him. But you see the growth, you
see the improvement, and you know, at the at the
point when he's playing with this national team, you just
let him do what he does and you don't want
to bother him. And then after the tournament's over, you

(01:02:44):
you know, we reached out and caught up and talked
about how well he's looked and how well he's played
and the achievements he's accomplished.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
And so it's a little bit of both.

Speaker 8 (01:02:52):
You give him our time away to hear your voice
all year, but at the same time you're encouraging him
and checking in and giving them kudos for the accolades.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
When fans would call me, they'd say, Matt, what do
you want to see this year? And I think one
of the things you wanted to see is the growth
of Reed Shepherd in terms of more ball handling, more
time on the floor, and now the pressure is even
on him more. And I don't think you're saying now
with Fred gone, it's yours, but collectively you've been asked
multiple times about exactly how that role is going to
be filled and I think you used by committee. Is

(01:03:20):
that an appropriate term?

Speaker 10 (01:03:21):
Oh, that's the way.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
I mean.

Speaker 8 (01:03:22):
We have a lot of guys that can you know,
have grown and can handle and do a lot of
things to initiate offense. And that's the benefit of our
depth and versatility on our team is that you don't
have to rely on one guy. Fred shoulder the load
a lot, you know, the first year, especially with the
young guys, and we want to keep our turnovers down
and get us into specific things. But I think in
year three four, for some of these guys, they've all

(01:03:43):
taken steps in that area and read going into a
second year, of the confidence that he's shown in the
offseason so far, we'll carry over well into the game.
The physicality of the game. I think he's improved his
body and his understanding of what it takes from the
physical aspect to be successful, and so he's worked on
all those things and this really showed up well so far.
So the opportunity is going to be there regardless with

(01:04:03):
Fred out if obviously we'll be expedited a little bit.

Speaker 10 (01:04:06):
But you got Amend, you got him, you got Katie,
you got Autp.

Speaker 8 (01:04:09):
You got different ways we can do it, and I
think we'll figure out how to get it done.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Does something go away from a men's game when he's
got the ball in his hand. If let's say you
said you're on our starting point guard, you're going to
play twenty five twenty eight minutes in that spot, there's
some there's things about his game he loses because he's
handling such other ball responsibilities.

Speaker 8 (01:04:26):
No, I think what he does he does naturally. He
gets a rebound, he pushes it. He's a one man
fast break. That's not going to change. You just have
to have a different mindset at times about awareness of
who's on the court and who you want to get
the ball to in different spots. And so that part,
it's been in Fred's hands a lot, but he has
to take that step anyway. He's played a lot of

(01:04:47):
point guard in his career and so just thinking differently
at times about attacking versus getting guys involved.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
You mentioned the turnovers and with Amen Thompson, what is
it like for you to try to have him he
himself to try to make plays, but also you don't
want you don't want to limit him and what he
can do with his creativeness, but you also do wanted
to take care of the ball.

Speaker 8 (01:05:08):
Yeah, I mean that's an area of growth for all
the young guys and young guys across the board in
the league for the most part, and so you know,
getting shots and not turn the ball over is obviously
has been an achilles hell before we got here, but
we've really improved in that area and that's helped us
record wise for sure. And so Fred being one of
the best assistant turnover ratio guys in the league has
definitely helped us. But these guys will have the opportunity

(01:05:29):
to have to take next step now. And so, like
I said, you don't want to take away from some
of the natural things he does, but he has to
then have the understanding of getting guys involved, get us
into certain sets, game time, score situations, and some of
the things he hasn't had to experience.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
So far.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
Well, we'll let you go on this. I always love
the behind the scenes stuff with Katie. Were you in
the room when you got the phone call, so the
deal was consummated where you maybe on a beach, where
you at home. Take us through that and how intimately
involved you were in those conversations to you know, gets
look at. Part of it is making the trade work als.
The part of it is Katie coming here. You're gonna
be this missing piece of our puzzle.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 8 (01:06:04):
We were all together when we found out it was
most likely done. You know, it was a long process
that a lot of a lot of conversations behind the scenes.
But you know, you're excited to have a guy you
missed the guys that are gone, and you know what
they meant to the program and what they've done in
those years, and so it's a little bittersweet as far
as that, but you understand what you're adding as far
as a unique talent and some of the areas we

(01:06:25):
struggled in as far as closing and consistent scoring. He
addresses those. And so a guy worked with a ton
over the past few years, you know, in Brooklyn and
Team USA and then obviously played in coach against him
a ton as well, and so understanding what he does
on the court, some of the things he does in
the sleep will obviously benefit us. But yeah, it was
you know, ups and downs, and sometimes it looked good,

(01:06:46):
sometimes it didn't, and.

Speaker 10 (01:06:47):
Eventually got done. But a big part is that he
wanted to be here and that's what made it work.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Pick up all with you or no, No, he owns
a team, a pickup ball team. Wait a minute, little
things you learn? Yes, okay, you tell you tell him
to hire you, to put you on the team. We cant.

Speaker 8 (01:07:03):
We actually started back in Brooklyn, back in those COVID
days when you couldn't go out, and so that's where
he kind of got the itch, and so I was
playing with Steve Nash and the whole coach.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Thanks, we appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Thank you all.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
You made a doka head coach your Houston Rockets. Whether
it's here on the show eleven thirty six, take a
short time out more to come here from Todar Center
as you made. Okay and the rest of the Rockets
Many day twenty twenty five. Here on seven nine, it's
Matt Ross and our friend DuBarry Smith Junior. The part
of the Auburn Tigers squads dropped two straight in football.
But when I can bring that up right out of
the gate, and that's fine. See, sometimes it's saying nothing

(01:07:39):
is the best thing you can do. As long as
we beat them, I'm good.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
Congratulates you got a fresh contract, my friend. That's so
good for you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
I appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Look, what's the big spin anything? Uh No, I just
take care of folks. Somebody like that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
Uh No, everybody taking care of around me. But I'm
just saying I bought I bought it. I bought a watch.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
That was my that was my little gift to myself.
I bought a watch.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Nice but that to me. Look, you earned every penny
of it. But just the fact that Rockets got that
taken care of, that's gonna be one thing off off
your plate for sure. You know, it definitely puts a
take some take some relief off of yourself. You know
what I'm saying. No that you're you're situated. You know,
I want to be here for a long time. I
want to be here for the rest of my career.
So you know, why not? Why not? You know what
I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
So I'm excited U.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Excited about this season. Clearly friend being gone, somebody's gonna
take that. And look, Katie will do that in his
own way. But you're gonna be a little more bortures,
I would assume this year in terms of, uh, there
was a lot of moxy on that floor with Fred
and Dillon, and those guys are not with me with
you this year.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
Sure, it's very definitely some tough shoes to feel, you
know what I'm saying. But we got the guys for it,
you know. And I think Fred believes that, and I'm
sure he's gonna be around a lot and uh helping
us out still.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
So it's gonna be interesting, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
But uh, we're gonna figure it out, you know what
I mean, We're gonna be all right, We're gonna figure
it out. I know, his voice will still be around,
He'll still be helping us big time. But we got
guys who got personnel, we got the coaching staff. We're
gonna figure it out.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
We'll be first getting the league. You guys are just
trying to get to relevancy. Then you get to the
playoffs and now you've got if you go on the
internet or anything your title contenders. Yeah, that's gonna be
a special situation. But that carries additional pressure that you've
never felt in your NBA career.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
It's pressure that you want, it's pressure that you dream about.
It's pressure that anybody in this league wants to have,
you know what I mean. It's just a it's a
being on a team that's capable of doing that. And
it's not often and Fred reiterates to me a lot
that it's not often that you have teams that are
capable of winning the championship. So the best thing we
can do is maximize it. Locking every day and uh,
see where we and see what we can do.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Team growth expected. What about you individually? What are you
do You have any sard of goals or things you've
been working off this offseason. That's pretty rich. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Man, I've been getting I've been lifting a little bit,
you know what I mean, working on my body, working
on my overall game, ball handler, working on everything, trying
to not put put any limits on my game. Uh,
everybody always talks about potential, you know what I'm saying,
It's just it's time for me to show. It's time
for me to come out there a little bit more confident, aggressive,
just show what I can do, you know what I'm saying,
And uh, that's what I'm excited to do. I feel

(01:10:03):
like my confidence level has went up a lot and
that and that comes off the work you put in.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
I know I put in the work. I know I
put it in the time. So the results and the
work will definitely show.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
And a lot of that has to confidence, especially helps
with shooting. And you know, first year three point percentages
maybe where you wanted to be. How do you feel
about your your shooting as as a guy who can
stretch the floor and really help out, especially with the
way the team's constructed now.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):
For sure, I think I have the ability to be
a forty percent three point shooter. I feel like I
have the ability to be one of the best shooters
in the league, you know what I mean. And it's
just on me to to to find a balance between
how to how to take a lot, how to take
good ones, and how to also learn how to turn
those down and get get other teammates involved and uh,
see what else is open. So it's something that that
always been a part of my game, something that is

(01:10:49):
is a focal part of my game shooting, you know
what I'm saying. So uh, I think it's I think
it's my duty to just to just show that how
elite of a shooter I am.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Everybody will say this year's workouts off season, we're cool
and everything, and sometimes it's lip service. For sure, tell
me number seven's here. Alpi had a great off season.
I'm sure you are all doing your thing a man,
and look, Reid's got to step up too, with growing
in the NBA. Give me a vibe if I took
video of and I'll see y'all later this week at
training camp. But what is it like looking at y'all?

(01:11:17):
What's workouts today? Is maybe a compared to a year ago.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
It looks it looks, it looks wild. You know what
I'm saying. Everybody has improved, Everybody has gotten better. Alpi's
looking better, Kady looks like Kde Sorry looks better. A
man looks better. I look better. New faces around the
around the gym. The team looks ready, you know what
I'm saying. The team looks focused, The team looks looks good.
You know what I'm saying. The vibe is there everybody

(01:11:42):
around the arena, everybody around the team believes in it,
you know what I'm saying, And it is that kind
of feel, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
So it's a good feeling to have around the ring.

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
It's a good it's it's it's a good thing to
look at your left and right and have have people
you go into world with who you believe in and
believe in you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
So it's gonna be fun.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
You've gone against the DFS a lot, You're going against
KT a lot. Are you open at this point to say, Hey,
here's how I could stop you? And I'm just curious,
how did you stop me?

Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Those what kind of conversations those like?

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
I mean, no, we ain't had those conversations yet. But
training camp will definitely get get cracking a little bit,
you know what I'm saying. With us competing with each other,
with us pushing each other, with us getting each other
ready for the season, and going against Kadi every every
day and practice, you've got no choice better get better at.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
Defense, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
So yeah, and uh, going against Dorian on on the offense,
then you've got no choice to but to get better
on offense.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
You know, what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
So every day is gonna be a battle. Every day
is gonna be a chance. But I'm great that I can.
But I'm lucky that I can battle the practice every
day with two of the best president the league at
what they do. And this is something gonna help me.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
What's the most anxious thing about this season? About who
takes over Fred's minutes? How you get off to a start.
I mean, you're gonna have You're gonna personal goals, You're
gon have team goals. But what What's gonna be the
most curious thing about this team for people that are
back on the Rockets bandwagon, especially after making the playoffs
last year.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
I think it's I think it's just the mental side
of it, you know what I'm saying, The maturity of
the team, You know what I mean. Everybody throws around
this young word and and all of that, but I
just feel like it doesn't matter, you know what I'm saying,
And that's what you may always try to puts in
our head. We're here, we have to grow up. We
have to make those jumps. You have to make those
those mental jumps, and those we have to look the part.
You know what, I'm saying, we have to look like

(01:13:20):
we know we don't. We don't have a lot of
people on the team. We don't have no rookies playing
this year. We don't have anybody who is who wasn't
on the team, who hasn't been to the playoffs, or
who was new to it, you know what I'm saying,
Like we have people who have been there, We have
people who have experienced the high arcs of the league.
So you know, it's just it's just time, man. There's

(01:13:40):
no more excuses, no more young excuse. Like everybody has
seen it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
And what is it like for you personally as somebody
who has started something has come off the bench. Of
course you want to start every game. You want to
be out there every month, every game as much to
balance kind of being humble, being a team player. But
also you have to have that certain personal hunger to
drive in the league too, where you say you want
to be out there for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
I think that's something that that that that has to
be in you. You know what I'm saying. It's a
it's a confidence type of thing. It's a thing that
you want to in your mind. You're thinking if I
play better, the team will be better. If I take
this out, the team will be better. You know what
I'm saying. It's just you're kind of trusting your work,
and I feel like that's what I'm gonna be doing
this year, you know, just being more aggressive, being more assertive,
knowing that I belong, knowing that I got this Katie.

(01:14:26):
You know what I'm saying exactly exactly, you know, waving
Katie off.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
Oh, I can't wait for that. I love it. I
can'tnot wait for that. I'm sure. Here's me calling Durant
left side over. Ji's I got this, Yes, sir, let's go.
I like it. Hey, thanks for coming by, congratulating your
new deal, and look forward to seeing your progressive man.
That's gonna be a phone with all right. That's Jabari
Smith joining us here, matten Ross. It's eleven fifty on

(01:14:51):
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Speaker 9 (01:15:40):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
I got to make sure I get the official title
here right here, Patrick, so uh, we're gonna put them
on microphone right now, Patrick Fertida, who is Dad's busy
off in Italy.

Speaker 9 (01:15:52):
He's having a good time, so he calls you. We
almost came back just for this interview. That's ridiculous, as
good as it is any to talking about tough.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
We got to talk about those weekend rates at the
Golden Nugger.

Speaker 9 (01:16:03):
But we'll do that af air on with the kind
of play that you have. It's everything free, is what
they tell.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Me high roller, high roller, I don't know. We got
let's talk about something else, Okay, all right, So Dad
calls you and says I'm taking this job, and you're like,
you're doing what now?

Speaker 9 (01:16:18):
Yeah, you know, I think it was It was a
bit of a surprise for all of us. It's something
that you know, he had always mentioned if he is
given the opportunity and it's the right country and the
right time, it's something that he would love to do.
Certainly a bucket list item, if you will. So we
were surprised, but you know, to have the opportunity to
serve uh the president in the country and do it

(01:16:39):
in a place like like Rome, Italy. Uh, you know,
I'm happy for him. I think you know, he's getting
the experience that's invaluable and and uh, he's having fun.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:16:49):
All you have to do is keep up with his
social media or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:16:53):
It was Milan Fashion Week last week, and yeah, you
know he's uh, you know, he's getting tailored in the
middle of a cock till party by you know, Brunello
Cucinelli or something like that, and he's sending us saying
like like, you know, he's he's young again. He's living
the life that I think many would want to live.
And we're happy for him and and and proud of him.

Speaker 5 (01:17:12):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:17:13):
You know, he's representing our country, representing our family, and
hopefully the Houston community sees that he's representing Houston and Texans,
you know, on a on a major stage.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
So he misses it.

Speaker 9 (01:17:25):
I think, you know, maybe the most difficult part for
him being gone is uh not being at forty one
home games. He loves, you know, coming to these Rockets games.
He loves being a part of the excitement and the energy,
and obviously it's a it's a year ahead that there's
a lot to look forward to. Uh, but he'll be watching,
you know, even if it's through Italy.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
I'm assuming they do.

Speaker 9 (01:17:45):
Right, he's got he's got I don't know, I might
get him in trouble. I think he's got like DirecTV
rigged up to where it thinks he's in Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
So we'll cut that part right, right, that's going to
be edited all.

Speaker 9 (01:17:58):
Hey, you know what the ambassadors get into a TV
right international, that's a plug at the least.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Yeah, But obviously he has a tremendous of faith in
you and you have and I will give you a
lot of credit, and not that I've been involved in
a lot of your meetings, but it just you have
been there through all of this and learning from the
ground floor up. And then you had a very interesting
offseason where you were presenting an opportunity to get one
of the fifteen greatest players ever to play in the NBA.

Speaker 9 (01:18:21):
Yeah, that's right, and I appreciate I appreciate that. Obviously
a lot has gone on in the now almost a
decade since you know, we came into to the position
that we are with this team, and you know, we
did we did a lot of the work we did
and at times made some some meaningful sacrifices because we
wanted to put ourselves in a position where we could ultimately,
uh contend and contend in a way that was you know,

(01:18:43):
hopefully sustainable and not just taking a shot here and there,
but could say, hey, we've got a five, seven, ten
year kind of look at this. And this year, you know,
the opportunity came to to as you said, add, you know,
one of the greatest players of all time, someone who
you know, even at turning thirty seven and today has
you know, not fallen off and is consistently, you know,

(01:19:05):
doing it at at an all pro, world class level.
And uh to add his skill set, to add his
his leadership on and off the court, his work ethic.
You know that these young guys are able to see,
you know, we think is really special and important, and
you know we're we're excited. Uh, you got to get lucky.
Things have to go your way. You're you're going to

(01:19:26):
be faced with adversity like we already have. But but uh, yeah,
you know, Kevin is, Uh, Kevin's a special player, and uh,
you know you got to take advantage and be opportunistic
when when those things present themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
I'm rawesome with you too, here, nice to meet you.
Just as far as the addition of Kevin Durant, can
you already feel like just I mean on the business
side or the whole team, It's it's funny to me
that adding a player of his caliber, while it helps
on the floor, it feels like it can change really
the scope of a ranchise.

Speaker 9 (01:19:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think I think you're exactly right,
And the answer is all of the above. As far
as what he impacts, you know, certainly, the excitement, the lore,
the national attention is a little bit different. You know,
we won fifty two games last year and it had
a really exciting team, but it is a star driven league,
and you know, unless you're unless you're really winning big
deep into the playoffs or you have, you know, one

(01:20:18):
of these exciting players like like Kevin is sometimes it
is a little bit of a lag as far as
the attention and the respect that you get. The addition
of him, certainly, I don't want to know it's zero
to one hundred, but it's something to one hundred, and so, yeah,
we feel it everywhere. Obviously, on the business side, there's
excitement and people want to be in the building immediately.

(01:20:40):
They want to be a part of what we are
hopefully building. And yeah, from the basketball side, you know,
Kevin not only is an incredible talent, one of the
best to ever do it, but it's not an accident.
Why he is Kevin Durant. He loves the game of basketball,
he loves this league. He works as hard as anybody
that we've ever had in the building, and he's a

(01:21:03):
great teammate.

Speaker 5 (01:21:04):
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:21:04):
He part of the reason why he wanted to be
here and he is here is he's a believer in
what we have going. He's confident that that, uh, you know,
the veterans we have, but more importantly the uh, the
youth that we have are on their way to uh,
you know, being impactful special players, uh in this league.
And and and we think it's the right fit, and

(01:21:24):
we we certainly hope it's gonna work out.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
Couple more minutes here with Patrick Fortita. There have been
opportunities in the past, maybe not in the first few
years since everybody left to go make that splash move
you got it with Fred and Dellan a little bit.
Was there a part of you that was like, you know,
we can run this back and maybe make a small
minor deal here or there, or was there a situation
that said, this was the off season that I want

(01:21:48):
to go for it all, so to speak.

Speaker 9 (01:21:50):
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that question. You know, I think
I think the answer is no. There was never a
moment of desperation or we need to do anything. That's
not really how we operate. We won fifty two games
last year with a young team, and that that was
going to grow naturally organically into this year as guys
got older and got more comfortable. Was another year under
the same coaching staff, a lot of continuity, which which

(01:22:13):
certainly is helpful. But but but but no, we we
would have been comfortable doing this a variety of different ways.
We felt like we had put ourselves in a position
to be successful without doing anything. But but but the
right player, the right deal presented itself. By no means
do I feel like, oh, we're going all in. Absolutely not.
I feel like the deal that we did and the

(01:22:34):
player that we brought in and and what we left
ourselves with allows us to to be hyper competitive and
and and and have.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
Title hopes now.

Speaker 9 (01:22:47):
But it does not It does not foreclose anything next
year or the years following. So you know, it's one
of the attractive parts of of what we did this
summer is we feel like we did something that made
us really really good now but doesn't hinder our ability
to be great in the future as well. And and
and you know, I've got a very long term view
on this. That's you know, me, Rafel, his staff, e mail,

(01:23:09):
all of us that that get together and are are
designing and building, uh you know what we want to build.
You know, we all we all have a long term
view and we want to be good for a long time,
and and and we just got to be opportunistic and
when the right thing comes, we'll take a hard look
at it. It's usually a pass. But on this one, uh,
we said, let's go, you know, let's do this.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
I don't know how active you are on social media,
but I'm I'm always I love rumors.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:23:35):
I wish I could call you and say, Patrick, what
do you think about this? Or come on?

Speaker 10 (01:23:38):
You do fine?

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
I don't even I don't even bother you like one,
I don't even bother you for three two black check by.
It's a different issue again for a different time. On
that one. Uh, when you see things like that, is
it comical to you? Or is it Hey, somebody's putting
that out there for a reason. Let's go kick the
tires on this. When when are you?

Speaker 9 (01:23:55):
Are you suggesting when I see rumors that are untrue?

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
Or you both? When when some but he says, and
I don't want to put names out there because I
don't want to put a particular player right, may want
to think about playing somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
Do you go?

Speaker 1 (01:24:09):
All right? Raphel labaphone, call see if this is agent driven,
See if this is just a reporter just trying to
throw stuff out there.

Speaker 9 (01:24:17):
Yeah, I mean, I would say I think by the
time that it's maybe reaching social media or any media,
there's a good chance that it's already you know, gone
through the grape vine of the league, and you know,
ninety five percent of the time, I'd say, you know,
we're already aware of the validity of it or not.
But you know when when people throw out erroneous things

(01:24:39):
online or what have you. And I've been a sports
fan my entire life. I've been a Houston sports fan
my entire life. I've been listening to your show for
as long as.

Speaker 2 (01:24:48):
I can remember.

Speaker 9 (01:24:49):
Before I could drive, I was throwing you know, so
so I remember what it was like before I'm in
the position I am now. And the sports fans, the
people that are conjuring stuff up, whether it be true
or not true, that's what makes this great. People care,
people are passionate people. People want to consider what it
would be like to have this player or make this

(01:25:11):
trade or sign this player. So you know, we we
when it comes to making decisions, we're you know, wear
in our box and we don't hear.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
A lot of it.

Speaker 9 (01:25:19):
But I even the crazy stuff I see online and
there's plenty of it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:25:25):
I just appreciate that people care about this business. They
care about this this sport, this league, this team as
much as they do.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
Is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross four Sports Talk
Semnini Matten Ross with you here on the program we
are helping, joined now by Aman Thompson. You and your
brother on that Slam magazine cover. Huh that wasn't bad.

Speaker 5 (01:25:47):
That's tough, right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
How long did it take you to do that?

Speaker 5 (01:25:51):
Like an hour?

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
That's it? Yeah? Yeah, like a hour man down in
Florida doing your thing. Is that. We spent a lot
of the off season in four ladder Dow.

Speaker 5 (01:25:59):
Yeah, go back to my high school workout. You know,
that's where a lot of my family is.

Speaker 10 (01:26:03):
So that's nice.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
That's nice. Congratulations on the great success. Congratulations on every
time I look on social media like up and coming
top twenty five star, do you look at that kind
of stuff where you're like, oh, it's nice. I appreciate that.

Speaker 5 (01:26:15):
When I first got to the league, I would look
at it. It was exciting. Now it's like at some
point you gotta go out there and do something, you
know what I mean, before you get it. So Yeah,
it's exciting still though, but gotta do something.

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
Yeah, you're doing plenty of my man. I'm so happy
that your success so far. Everyone's asking me, is a
man gonna bring the ball up?

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
Who?

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
I'm just a re gonna do it? What have you
been told? What do you think? And do you think
it's gonna just organically, over the course of the year
kind of just settle its way into who plays in
what position?

Speaker 5 (01:26:45):
I think organically it's gonna settle, you know, before anything happened,
I think I was gonna get a little bit more
on ball reps too, yep, and Red was too. So
I think it's just accelerated a little bit now on that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
Do you think it's a situation? I mean, do you
do you find yourself wanting the ball more or do
you can you do some things to position yourself to
score better when your ball is not directly in your hands.

Speaker 5 (01:27:11):
I feel like I can. I'm very effective in both
aspects with the ball in my hands and then off
the ball too, So I'm definitely somebody that could play
with any lineup, you know, whoever's bringing the ball up,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:27:26):
How many?

Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
There are very few guys in this league that can
play four positions. I mean, you've got Kdi's with you
know who's done it that quite a bit in his
life as well. But to master it. I love the
fact that one night you're starting point guard, you've been
two guard, you've been playing power forward to that dunker spot.
Was that always something that you dreamed of to be
that kind of versati player because it's trying to turn
out that way.

Speaker 5 (01:27:45):
Yeah, I never dreamed about that. By first year I
played center for like offensively for the last twenty something games,
I never thought I was center.

Speaker 1 (01:27:52):
I played center my rookie year point center. Let's play center, let's.

Speaker 5 (01:27:55):
Go, And I never thought I was. But I feel
like it's taught me how to first i'd be more versatile,
and how to get myself open and others open too.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
So what with fred of going? Of course, we know
that he brought a lot of both as kind of
a like a coach on the court and somebody who
had a very good assistant turnover ratio? What kind of
things you think you can see what he did or
do you feel like there are things that you can
borrow kind of what he did to run the offense
to try to help things transition more smoothly with him.

Speaker 5 (01:28:27):
Yeah for sure. I mean I got to pick his
brain even more now, you know, try to become that
leader extension of coach on the floor. You know, we
got Katie for that too, and a lot of vets.
But I still want to get better at that and
the sisters turnover thing. Nobody wants to get turned over.
So you know, if I could emulate Fred, but freds
one of the greatest to ever do it, and that I.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
Can't just snap your fingers and do it.

Speaker 5 (01:28:48):
I mean you can't just that, but I could be
conscious of it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
And but you also want to stay within yourself.

Speaker 5 (01:28:54):
I said with myself.

Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
Yeah for sure. I think friend's gonna be screaming at
you all year long. You know this, right, you got
to do assistance, so he did the last two years.

Speaker 5 (01:29:01):
Yeah that's all good.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
I mean, there there are worse guys to be yelling.
I mean the guy and that's the thing about him
and d Delling was that those were guys that were
ready to beat their chests. We met you, yell at you,
but it was all in love. And now you may
have to take some of that role on now.

Speaker 5 (01:29:14):
Yeah, I mean Fred, Fred was always like I mean,
top professional at it, like he's you never feel away
after Fred yells at you. You know, you know you
know what Fred wants to you, and you're ready to
go to war with Fred. So I mean it's gonna
be the same thing. He's just gonna be on the sideline,
but I know he's gonna still have that impact for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:29:34):
What is that like for you? It's part of the
Rockets culture with Udoka, with Fred and with you being
part of that as well. It's kind of like, you know,
this day and age, you don't see a lot of
like hard coaching or or like you said, yelling and
stuff like that, but it just seems like it's well
embraced by this team.

Speaker 5 (01:29:49):
Yeah, I don't feel like it's as much yelling as
people think.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
It's really good.

Speaker 5 (01:29:52):
It's it's stern. You know they're gonna get the message across, okay,
but it's not. It's not he's just yelling like college
like cursing me out, calling the names like. It's all
respectful and I feel like our guys take it really
well too.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
So I just love the blank talking y'all make all
during the whole year. I just it's it's so inspiritual.
I mean, and you're not bad guys, you just don't
get in our way.

Speaker 5 (01:30:16):
Yeah, for sure. I mean I feel like you gotta
be able to turn it on.

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):
On the court.

Speaker 5 (01:30:21):
I was telling everybody a bunch of nice guys.

Speaker 1 (01:30:22):
You know, Oh, y'all are sweet. He was like, sent me,
let's go down.

Speaker 5 (01:30:28):
It's the nice guys. But on the court, you know,
we want we want to win, obviously, and sometimes that
shows in different ways.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
So did you see Todder at all during the off
season anymore? No vacation with him?

Speaker 5 (01:30:43):
No, no, no, We're probably in the same place.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
What was your reaction when you heard Kevin Durant as
a Houston Rocket.

Speaker 5 (01:30:52):
My reaction was like, very excited, you know, getting Katie
because it's dude, I watched my whole life, you know,
one of the best ever. So yeah, that was my
original reaction.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):
Reaction.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
Yeah, any age references, he's you know, he's turning thirty
seven years old today, you get him a cane or something. No,
I mean, I.

Speaker 5 (01:31:12):
Probably one of the top thirty seven year olds whatever,
maybe the number one thirty seven year old probably. Ever,
so I think he's good.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):
To me and I don't know at all at this point,
but it's it's much about basketball. It's very little let's
get on social media and do a bunch of stuff.
It's just very much a business for Hi because I
think he wants to play into his forties and you
have to have that kind of discipline if you're gonna
play as long as he's going wants to play at least.

Speaker 5 (01:31:39):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like from the best still here.
You know, he's obviously super about his crowds, and then
you hear that, and then you see it, and you
see how he goes through every rep and he's going
through it like like he's really trying to get better.
Still then like how much better can you get at
that point?

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:31:57):
But he's doing it, so it's like inspirational to watch.

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
Before I let your run, you and Austar have call
your mom and dad first. One of the NBA finals
gets a special gift or something.

Speaker 5 (01:32:08):
My dad is my dad has you know, I can't
even say this on on the camera. I can't give
y'all stuff, but I mean, hopefully I get to the
finals first, that is all I say.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
Yeah, they're gonna be in our place very early in
the season.

Speaker 5 (01:32:22):
I know, I'm man, I wanted to like ease into
the season before I kill him, you know what I mean.
I want to just that's very nice of you, you know.
But you'll hug it out after the game.

Speaker 1 (01:32:33):
I'm hugging before.

Speaker 5 (01:32:34):
I'm like, I'm sorry, I gotta do this, but.

Speaker 1 (01:32:36):
Oh I like it.

Speaker 10 (01:32:37):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
How many times have be gone against each other in
your life? Not much?

Speaker 5 (01:32:43):
Right, not much? Probably maybe a little over ten times.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
And who has the who is the advantage at this point?

Speaker 5 (01:32:51):
Oh, he might have the event. I got the most
in the league, but he has the most in general.

Speaker 1 (01:32:56):
Well, late October, it's got to change. It's got a change,
all right. Man Thompson with us here on the show.
Thank you for coming by, my friend. I appreciate ITVN
Thompson joining us here a short time out here from
Tutu Center. It's twelve eleven on Sports Talk seven ninety.
All right, it is twelve to seventeen here on Sports

(01:33:17):
Talk seven ninety Matt and Ross with a here Rockets
Medy Day. We are expecting to be joined by Kevin
Durant coming up in the next few minutes or so.
Ryan Hollins is going to come by after that, and
then if you miss our emade O conversation, will probably
play it towards the very end of the show. A
couple things on the NFL front from the Texans. You know,
I am the Texans Insider, and I continue to tell

(01:33:38):
you that on your regular basis. Okay, Joe Mixon sounds
like there's no immediate update on his future. Aaron Wilson
backing up my innits reports and say it could be
a long time report. Oh yeah, I mean I've been
telling you for a long time. And tell what Aeron said, Dimigo,
Ryan speaking about Joe Mixon saying he is not ready
to return at this time, and Aaron Wilson adding, per sources,

(01:34:00):
it will be much longer, if at all, for Mixon
to get back on the field this season. And that's
okay because Chubb is holding it down and Woody is
doing great as well. Woody and Chubb in the backfield.
Woody and Chubb sounds good.

Speaker 4 (01:34:15):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
What else on the Texans front, Well, Cam Robinson was
traded of course, Yeah, I'm sure he was a good teammate, right,
Glad to have him. That just wasn't a spot form
that kind of thing. I'm assuming, by the way, Denico
Autry and Jalen Reed returning opening up their window to
return from ir But no Joe Mixon. But no Joe Mixon. No, okay,

(01:34:37):
it is the Matt Thomas Sherwood Ross. We are at
Sports Talk seven ninety and we are gonna be joined
here in a matter of moments by one of the
greatest players ever to play in the Nationville Basketball Association period.
In his story, he looks up at the screen he
sees Oklahoma City's thunder and media day complete disgusted, must
lose him, Kevin, I'm matd. This is Ross. I'm your

(01:34:58):
radio play by play guy. You shook his hand at
the University of Texas two thousand and seven, and it's
not wash his hands since then. So that's true. Actually,
either I didn't realize you guys, yeah, you didn't know.
You didn't know. First of all, welcome to Houston. You've
been here many a time. Let me ask you this.
We were at your place in Phoenix late last season.
I think it was gave me unfortunately got hurt. It

(01:35:20):
was there any thought looking at that young basketball team
at the time I could see myself being an extra
part of this squad. Was am I just making that up? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
For sure. I mean because that was right around the
time that.

Speaker 11 (01:35:33):
There's so much noise around our team in Phoenix, and
I was being put in the trade machine by every
media website for the last three or four months, And
obviously Phoenix had told me that they were trading you
a month or two before that, you know, So I
had my eye on teams, and I had my eye

(01:35:54):
on places that may potentially go anywhere, you know. So yeah,
I was, of course I was checking out the Rockets,
and I think everybody in the league seeing how fast
they got to this point of being a respected team again,
you know, because nobody really respected the Rockets coming in
here four or five years ago or right after the
Chris Paul James Harden era basketball, right, So to get

(01:36:17):
that respect around the league so fast, it just stood
out to me. And their brand of playing ball was
really it showed how how to aqu switching defenses, playing
double big, sometimes playing small in the game.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
You know, coaches coaching.

Speaker 11 (01:36:33):
Every possession, and guys are focused and locked in on
his message, you know. So I was peeping all of
that type of stuff throughout the game. And I appreciated
that and I want to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:36:42):
And so you a lob a phone, called the email
and say hey, we can do this.

Speaker 3 (01:36:46):
We work.

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
You guys work with each other with national team. You
did the Nett thing for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
Yeah. I didn't directly call you.

Speaker 1 (01:36:52):
Don't think you probably could because of the league rules.
I didn't directly call. You're a role follower.

Speaker 2 (01:36:59):
Your exactly go by the book.

Speaker 11 (01:37:04):
But it was, of course it got out there that
we both might be interested in one another, and it
happened pretty quickly after that, and uh it was I
heard some rumors that Houston wanted to get involved at
the trade deadline too, and Phoenix had called around the
league saying they wanted to see what my market was. So,
you know, you hear all of these rumors, and you know,

(01:37:28):
where there's smoke, there's a little fun. You know, that's
fire for sure. You know, so once once everything could
be you know, agents could talk to GM's and coaches
and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
It just kind of worked out pretty fast.

Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
Do you have any specific I mean, what is your attitude,
what is your mindset coming into the season, coming into
a new situation and getting traded. I know, you know,
there's obviously a lot of noise, and you're somebody who
doesn't try to pay attention to that at all. So
what is the what is your purpose and motivation for
this upcoming season that's changed?

Speaker 4 (01:37:59):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:37:59):
Man?

Speaker 2 (01:37:59):
Just to man. I'm a simple guy.

Speaker 1 (01:38:02):
Man.

Speaker 11 (01:38:02):
I just try to focus on the craft every day,
try to be better than I was yesterday. I know
that I could play a huge part in what we
do as a team, but we are a team and
we all have to bring our best every day in
order for us to reach out full potential as a group.
So I try to focus on the what I do
the best and try to bring that to the group,

(01:38:23):
and also be as a resource to somebody who has
some IQ, who has some experience. So whenever anybody needs
to walk or talk through anything on the court, I
try to be there for them as well.

Speaker 2 (01:38:33):
But I don't try to be too overbearing.

Speaker 11 (01:38:35):
I just try to go out there and play my game,
work on my game and bring that to the group
and be a good teammate. My phone always opened, my
door always open to come over and hang out, you know,
So I just try to try to be coachable every
day and every day and learn and you know, so
I just try to be a teammate.

Speaker 1 (01:38:52):
Man.

Speaker 11 (01:38:52):
I know I've accomplished a lot in this league and
people look at me a certain way, but I really
really take pride and I really got caught consciously try
to be just one of the guys every day.

Speaker 1 (01:39:03):
I need you to beat two year old former teams. Uh,
we can't beat the Warriors, and you know that directly.
You can beat us one time and then uh, Oklahoma
City is braging. They're doing a lot of bragging up
there right now, so is Uh. It's been incredible run
for you, my man. I I I have called many
of your games from a distance, and to see you
here wearing rockets scary, it's frankly surrealed.

Speaker 9 (01:39:24):
It is.

Speaker 11 (01:39:24):
It is walking in and usually your your route is
that quick left to the business in locker room and
to walk past it and go into the their rockets
locker as we didn't went through some battles playing against
the Rockets and flying into this city, nervous to play
these guys in this building and the playoffs, you know,
so to have those battles and to finally be here

(01:39:46):
and down the Rockets uniform.

Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
It is pretty surreal.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
It is a team that's young, but it's got the
veteran guys. Clint's here, now you got DFS. You know
Fred will be obviously from a distance, but you're not babysitting.
I mean, this is a team that is one fifty
two games when took Golden Stake to seven. I mean
there are there are clearly expectations, and that comes to
no surprise to you.

Speaker 11 (01:40:07):
Yeah, I mean expectations can do two things, you know,
either make a man out of you, or you know,
you can run into the corner and curl up.

Speaker 9 (01:40:15):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:40:15):
So I've been on teams where you know, guys did
both guys and rose to the Cajun and some and
I've been on teams where we didn't know how to
handle the expectations that come with being considered a championship contender,
you know. So that noise comes with being a good team,
and it's gonna get loud throughout the season.

Speaker 2 (01:40:33):
Any bad play or.

Speaker 11 (01:40:35):
Loss or bad body language or anything, and it'll be
under a microscope and it'll be dissected. And the great teams, regardless,
block out all the noise and keep the main thing,
the main thing, and focus on one another. So that's
a small element that people don't talk about in the journey.
But I'm looking forward to seeing what that'll be like

(01:40:57):
for this team because they never had these type of expectations,
you know, these young guys never played on these expectations before.
So I'm looking forward to see what that makes how
that makes us such a group.

Speaker 1 (01:41:06):
All right, last question, long and go ahead. Happy birthday
age thirty seven. Do you have you had any conversations
or talk about get facts playing full eighty two? Yeah,
and guests, no, playing playing a full eighty two in
a season? Is that your goal or or what are
you trying to do to as far as manage the season.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
I'll talk about managing the season. I just got there
and just play.

Speaker 11 (01:41:26):
Tell yeah, I expect to play eighty two for forty
eight minutes a night. That's how That's how I'm looking
at it. Obviously that's not that's not realistic, but you know,
I kind of keep my mind focused on playing every
game like load managing and obviously I'll listen to the
training staff that they figured they see as you know,
something that will worked for me. But for the most part,

(01:41:47):
I'm trying to I'm trying to go there and play
as much as I can.

Speaker 3 (01:41:50):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:41:50):
All right, now we feel about arch Manning. All right,
that's Nan Brant with us here on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
He is arch Arch sec play. We're gonna show these boys.
Mmmm yes that you yes, are for sure the number
one pick in the draft.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
There it is. That's a mic drop right there in
the mic for the greatest of all time. Man who's
beating us too many times now? A legend in Houston, Texas,
Kevin Durant. I'm looking forward to calling these games quick
time out here on Sports Talk seven ninety. All Right,
I've been doing this a long time, and I don't

(01:42:31):
mean to fan boy too often. I'm about the fan
boy here.

Speaker 3 (01:42:36):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
Ryan Hollins is here. That's why I'm fanboyd total. I'm
going the wrong on the wrong wrong. He was on
that one. Sorry, go ahead, test test. Hello, you were
in rare for Matt.

Speaker 4 (01:42:48):
I witnessed it. I you know, I Rosie Red. Oh yeah,
you're still blessing a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:42:56):
I am, and I get you're doing it to us.
I'm chilling.

Speaker 4 (01:42:59):
Wed Ross is really never washing his hands the photos
being framed that that type of year fellas.

Speaker 1 (01:43:12):
Yeah, how old he is? You played against him?

Speaker 2 (01:43:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:43:15):
Yeah, Man. Here's the thing for KD.

Speaker 4 (01:43:18):
I think I have a special relationship with him, being
that I played against him, watching him coming to the
league as a sonic, him and Jeff and Russ and
those guys and had a really man just gone to war.
I think I went against him in two different playoff series.
So seeing KD as a rocket and a guy that
I played against, you know, I can say this, man,

(01:43:39):
he's one of the only guys I feared on a
scouting report. You're looking at the scouting important you're playing
against a guy you know, you're playing against Lebron. You're going, well,
you know, keep him off the rim, you know, contested shots,
you know, don't let him get going. Beat you with
the assistant about you. And you match up with KD
and say, I don't know what we're gonna do if
he gets rolling. We don't have a double team that

(01:44:01):
can stop him, or the way that we'd have to
double and trap him is gonna allow everything else open
in the game. But he's one of those guys and
I consider myself a defender in the league that you
feared on a scouting report.

Speaker 1 (01:44:17):
And now he's here, and tell me, because we've called
games obviously since he's still been the league, is there
anything when's father time? Look, injuries are gonna kick in,
But is there anything about his game that we look
five or six years ago that would necessarily be he's
changed his game? Or is he pretty much the same
guy that you were going against.

Speaker 4 (01:44:37):
What the biggest thing with you know, with Kevin Durant
and that breeds longevity, is the fact that he's tall,
and he can shoot, and he is an assassin. He
gets to his spots and he's got lemp so even
if he loses a step or two latterly, he's got
the limp to catch up on the defensive end and
then being able to shoot the basketball over guys.

Speaker 1 (01:45:01):
In post up.

Speaker 4 (01:45:01):
I remember I was actually on first take and I
was having a debate on what he'd be the same
after the Achilles and I said.

Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
Yeah, there's no doubt. He's thin, he's gonna be able to.

Speaker 4 (01:45:10):
Play forever, and he can shoot and he's got lips,
So you got a recipe for success there. We got
another guy there by the name of Jabbar who's going
to be pretty darn good. It looks like he's starting
to exhale, and he saw him a few moments ago.
He's actually taller than me now, so it's just ridiculous,
like he was about an inch shorter than we're about
the same height last year.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
I think he's legitimately taller than me now.

Speaker 4 (01:45:31):
So being able to learn from Kevin Durant those guys,
hopefully he mirrors that same type of career.

Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
I'm interested in your thoughts on the defensive side. Like
in his prime, I mean, those Hampton five Warriors lineups
worked because he was kind of the rent protector. He
was the five of those lineups and he's not that
same guy. But where do you think he fits as
far as defensively at this age, because we know that
the Rockets win have the last couple of years been

(01:45:58):
a team in emi Adoka with that culture sets as
a team that wins with their defensive man for when he.

Speaker 4 (01:46:03):
Brings so much versatility defensively, and that's one thing that
were felling he may really hang their hats on. It's
having versatile defenders, guys that can guard one through five.
And the thing with KD that stands out, I think
people really underrate him defensively. And what stands out that
I remember seeing they were playing against the Lakers, and
I think it was a third or fourth quarter, and

(01:46:24):
he took the assignment to go and guard Kobe Bryant
and he was able to stay step for step with Kobe.
Now he's not the same defender he was then, but
it showed that he can. He's special on that side
of the ball. And I remember going up one time
getting my shot blocked from the guy, and I don't
even remember how to get to my shot block too much.

Speaker 1 (01:46:43):
I looked over him like I thought nobody was there,
and it was Durant.

Speaker 4 (01:46:46):
So you know, he is unique where he can, you know,
play some power forward, play some center along with being
on the wing just naturally with that type of length.

Speaker 1 (01:46:55):
Facing with Ryan Hollins are good friends Space City, Home
Network and casual contributor to The show Man Who eats
more Hibotchian anybody else in North America. You need something
that if you want to, They brought us some grub.
He's got his eye on our Ross Ross. It's unbelievable.
Everywhere we go he gets food delivered and he gets

(01:47:20):
nowhere out of nowhere are you do you ask for this?
Do you know better than that?

Speaker 12 (01:47:26):
I call Jesse, can you just hook me? Just keep
a brother on the list, on the list, on the
short because he gets ross ross, he gets too much food.

Speaker 4 (01:47:37):
Yeah, I mean it's milkshakes, it's donuts, it's ice cream,
and then don't forget that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:43):
Yeah, just get me on the short list. Trying. I mean,
I wish I could say I'm arguing with you about this.
These are stories. Okay, back to basketball, back to back,
Fred van Vliet missing obviously, they said it's gonna be everybody.
It's gonna take a village. It's gonna be a little
more Kevin Durant, a little more Shepper, a little bit
more a men Thompson. One of the things that that

(01:48:03):
Fred brought though, was that floor generalship, especially lad in games,
getting you into offenses. How much are they gonna miss them,
especially early season? I think will be a tougher to adjust.

Speaker 4 (01:48:14):
This was the uh, this was the position that as
an organization, the Rockets weren't equipped to lose. You know,
everything had been shirt up somewhat of A one A
one B. You know, even a lot of depth even
at the center position. You know, you got Oltp, you
got Clinton and Steven and that's the one you didn't have.
And with Fred, a lot of people may wonder, what

(01:48:36):
is Fred van Vliet do? Well, this is Joe Burrow
going down for Cincinnati. You know they're not gonna This
is brock Party going down as a Knight and fan
for the forty nine. This is imagine if C. J.
Stroud gets heard, this is losing your quarterback, your your toughness,
your leadership and UH for those computer gigs, will we
say this is the uh the information guys, the information
from the coach to player to game. Fred shortens that

(01:48:59):
there's there's zero. He may snaps his fingers and whatever
he would like to see on the floor happens. Now,
without Fred, there's gonna be a delay to a change.
And you heard Durant a couple of moments ago speaking
about what he said. I saw the Rockets change offensive strategies, offensives.
I saw them play different styles. You do that because
of Fred van Vliet. So now the challenge is men

(01:49:20):
Thompson reed. Aaron Holliday, a guy who the group, the organization, organization,
really would have loved to play more.

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
Last season.

Speaker 4 (01:49:27):
He played great minutes he saw career numbers out of him.
Now that opportunity is going to be there. So it's
gonna take everybody, and it's a group guys that we
saw win uniquely, Matt, and tell me if I'm wrong.
They won games on the defensive end. Yep, they won
offensive rebounds and sometimes they won scoring. So you're gonna
have to lean. You're not gonna have the same styles

(01:49:48):
that you can win with, but you're gonna have to
lean heavily in those other areas.

Speaker 1 (01:49:52):
I got a note for you. I don't think the
Rockets want to lead the league in offensive rebounding this year.
Don't want to. Nope. What did Draymond s greenside ur
in the playoff? What you say? He said they're leading
the league offensive rebound because they're missing so many shots. Yeah,
we got Kevin Durant, So I think that might be
if you're drawing it up and I'm not saying you're

(01:50:12):
doing it during training camp, you're not even doing it.
Maybe for the first ten or fifteen games. Is a
men Thompson better served for this team running point or
moving him all over the floor.

Speaker 4 (01:50:24):
Right now, all over the floor. He was primarily great
in the dunker. That's what people don't understand. He played
underneath the defense. When you get the rebound, he'd push,
he'd go there, kick aheads. He was mister transition.

Speaker 1 (01:50:36):
That was his green light. Right now, we know he
can do that.

Speaker 4 (01:50:41):
Now, the future of the Rocket says, you put him
all on the ball, you let him make his mistakes,
and you figure out and that's your point guard of
the future. So for email, you'd like to imagine he's
probably gonna experiment in between a little bit of both,
because he's one of the greatest players that I've ever
seen play underneath the defense, and what happens is you
kind of hit Himgoon in a fifteen action or a delay,

(01:51:04):
and when Shingoon goes and he's double combs, he hit
a men and a men was great scoring and then
being that secondary playmaker orcuts really were.

Speaker 1 (01:51:12):
Unique in that aspect.

Speaker 4 (01:51:14):
But putting a min on the basketball, I think he
plays all over the floor and finds ways to exploit
his mismatches.

Speaker 1 (01:51:22):
He's perfect, so good, you are really good. You're really good.
It's a crime, But you're losing so many games this year.
I don't but it's a crime. Maybe I'll be like
like your third or something coming comes up with I
don't think we can afford you.

Speaker 4 (01:51:36):
Yes, you can see the car this guy drive. There's
not a Hibachi. Millie hasn't picked up. Yes, yes he
can afford me.

Speaker 1 (01:51:44):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (01:51:46):
True Jamaican, just give your your uh your uh what
you Jamaican?

Speaker 1 (01:51:51):
The way you work. Jamaicans have a lot of jobs.
Many respect. He respects it.

Speaker 4 (01:51:57):
If someone says you Jamaica, you work like that. Actually,
I do have Jamaican heritage.

Speaker 1 (01:52:01):
I don't know if I did not know that man does. No,
I'm as white bird as it gets. My friend. This
is what it is. And when we go to La
that's true. That's true. Ryan. I cannot wait to work
with you guys again this year. It's so much fun
hanging out with you and your insights and you're just
You're just a great friend. And I really appreciate coming
by on the shoulderday lot. Bet Wait, we had dinner
a couple of times. Obviously, Yeah, not enough. How about you?

(01:52:23):
So Ross you're invited? Oh, let's go. We got a
bet on Kyle Tucker's contract for about seven and a
half years. I hit the over. It's a wonder the Texans.

Speaker 4 (01:52:31):
Okay, I'm thrown a hell on Okay my Texans. Are
they not doing the line assignments? Are they not identifying
the rushers and stunts that are happening? Or is the
offensive line just poor?

Speaker 1 (01:52:46):
He sent me the video. Yeah, they have to. Well
they they've been shuffling. They've had like four different offensive
lines in four games.

Speaker 2 (01:52:53):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:52:53):
I think gotta get continuity is key?

Speaker 4 (01:52:56):
Or is that when you're identifying blitzers and ushers and
saying you got him, you got him, you got him?

Speaker 1 (01:53:02):
Or guys just getting beat?

Speaker 4 (01:53:03):
Because I will say in basketball, if I go to help, right,
and then after I help, nobody has my man, and
then I look bad on the film, I'm not gonna
go help again.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
So I don't think you want to go just throwing
somebody under the bus, right. Some of that that shouldn't
happen at home either when it's quiet. Okay, communications communication breaks,
a little bit of both communication and each man to
a role can be better. Yes, I could have said
it better myself. That is the one and only NBA
and NFL analyst Ryan with the old line guru, and
you're a great Madden player too.

Speaker 4 (01:53:34):
Is that right, and CJ's my guy, CJ. Tank and
those guys, Man, I want to see him do well.

Speaker 1 (01:53:38):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:53:38):
I'm definitely excited for him and know how much it
means to him and those guys hold themselves to a standard.

Speaker 10 (01:53:43):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:53:43):
I want to be out there doing well. So I
hope they figure it out because the offense is so
much better than what we've been seeing, fellas, It's so
much better. Twenty six nothing, baby, let's go yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:53:54):
And you know what, as a player sometimes you got
to basketball. You want to see the ball go to
the whole. You know, you want to see a touchdown,
you want to be in the red zone. You want
to see those things. So hopefully that jolts the group
into uh, you know, playing the way that they can
play because the defense is lights out.

Speaker 1 (01:54:10):
Oh god, Texas talk with Ryan Hollins. Let's podcast heart
No you you you know you you are one hundred
percent authentic. I appreciate you. Matt. All right there, it
is the one and only Ryan Hollins. We're gonna have
a little snack now. We've got some great sponsors the show.
While we have a little snack. Yeah, WCE you go ahead.
Hear from them twelve forty three on Sports Talk seven

(01:54:33):
ninety Moore coming up here from Tona Center. Next Man,
I got a serious problem, Ross. I'm it's twelve forty
nine here on the Matt Thomas showed Ross. I'm a
fifty three year old grown ass man, married three children,
good life, got good friends, good radio. Uh huh, great
co host, great co host. I means spectacular, spectacular, well underutilized.
Oh my god. But I'm still fanboing over Kevin Durant.

(01:54:56):
I I've never been as close to him a we
were in that conversation, all right, we got a little
real talk, real talking on Monday. I was touched, a
little touch nervous. I'm always gonna be nervous. I mean,
I'm nervous anybody we have on that are impactful people.
But my my heart rate was probably my bpms are
probably up. But you know, by the end of it,
I was fine. He's just a guy. He was chill.

(01:55:19):
He's very, very very chill. Now let me let me
and I wants to hoop. And I would tell you this.
He believes in arch manning, which I appreciate. Yeah, I
would say, is he's gonna do what is necessary in
terms of meaning commitments, He's not, you know, and he
will get into a tussle on Twitter once in a
while if necessary, love it, but I've done enough where
he kind of was the broadcast meetings in New York

(01:55:39):
couple of weeks ago, and they said as much. The
people that have covered him before it said, look, he's
all about basketball, yes, and because I think you know,
he did talk about he wants to playing. It was
forties thirty seven to day as a matter of fact,
So I mean, uh, you can do it. I mean,
I think Lebron set sort of uh set a standard
to say, you know what, you keep yourself, your body right,

(01:56:02):
you love basketball because frankly, I don't know what Kevin
Durant wants to do post basketball like, but I don't
think he's thinking about that anytime soon. That's why I
think Lebron also doesn't want to quit him and well
see gonna do He's just a born hooper. Yeah, that's
just the way I would put it.

Speaker 8 (01:56:14):
He was.

Speaker 1 (01:56:15):
I mean that he loves basketball, he's obsessed about basketball.
And then also he was born seven foot with like
a seven five wingspan, so it kind of worked out
for him, right. Also a great shooting touch. I mean,
he's got That's what greatness takes, is you have to
have some of the some of the inborn as far
as like you know, physical skills and all that type

(01:56:36):
of stuff, and then also that attitude, that love, that
work ethic. That word has come up from a couple
of players that we've talked to about him, is that
work ethic that he has to put in the work
and you add all that up and you end up
with one of the all time greats. And that's what
he is and hopefully can continue to be for the
Rockets this season. And I will steal some lines from
Adam Clinton A Men Thompson too. I mean, for guy

(01:56:56):
who's been the league two years, he just he he
looks the part. I mean that is a he is
a star in the making if that shot can get
even a little bit better, because it got better from
season one to two. So never gonna be considered a
long range threat, I don't think. But the so many
of the intangibles that he brings to the table and
the ability that again can play four different positions, very

(01:57:18):
few players in NBA can put that on the resume
right now. Yeah, he's already First Team All Defense. That
is gonna I mean, that's a huge help, and that's
a big feather in his cap, and that's gonna be
a plus player. So to make that leap from plus
player to star, that's when you're gonna have to kind
of add in that offensive game, and he's gonna have
some opportunities, especially as a playmaker. He didn't have to
go out there and score twenty points game on this team, no,

(01:57:40):
but if he can go out there get them in
their offense, be a good playmaker and score and be
effective and knock down the occasional corner three. Well, here's
the thing. Teams are going to back away if he
can't do it, and that's gonna put a lot of
pressure on the other four guys on the floor that
are trying to look for their open shot. You know,
Imai always says to me, and in some Terry tells
his guys there are good shots to be found on

(01:58:01):
the love of the floor. It's your responsibility to find
the great shot. And if Thompson can least keep it
reasonable in that corner three, which is his preferred spot
to shoot the three pointer, that's gonna make everybody's lives
a lot easier. Yeah, teams are going to back off
on him, but I mean teams have backed down on
other players for years as well who aren't great shooters.
I mean, Russell Westbrook is one of the first ones

(01:58:24):
that come to my mind. You have to still win
with playmaking, with craft, with the speed that he does have,
so you can still get to the basket. Obviously it's
gonna be a little bit more tough, but it'll help
with the With a guy like Kevin Durant stretching the
floor where you know, there were times last year where
you had him in on the floor. Shagon's down three
point threat other guys who aren't plus three point shooters,

(01:58:44):
and then the paint can get a little packed. So
if if Jabari he told us he wants to be
a three point shooter, if he can get close to that,
Kevin Durantz was forty three I believe last year, And
and I don't know about Alpi, but other guys on
this team who could be three point threats. That's going
to open things up for from In Thompson down Long
and Alpi too. I mean, and again I take these

(01:59:04):
things with a grain of salt, but everything from ESPN
reports to the reporters that are going overseas to watch,
said Alpi was a man possessed in that euro League.
Now and get something NBA. But it's not far off, no,
it's it's hey, well, it's better than if he was
scoring six points a game, every every game. So for
him to dominate. We'll see how much that matters and

(01:59:25):
that growth, because I think I Doka mentioned it strength
and conditioning. It did look toward in the playoffs he
was missing a lot. How many how many times did
we talk about him missing bunnies and missing hook shots
and missing shots that he normally I want that free
throw number to start going back, because it was seventy
five of the first two months of the year and
then it started to dwindle. I don't think that's an accident.
When we talk about strength and conditioning and trying to

(01:59:46):
stay I mean, it's a long season. Man. Eighty two
games is tough, especially with the way the guys pushed
their their bodies in the offseason, and you have to
build that up. And and so if he can continue,
if he can continue to do that, as far as
UH having more win towards the end of the season
and in the playoffs that that's gonna be huge because
we we know he's very good. Can he continue and

(02:00:07):
keep that up because his his field goal percentage has
gone down I think three straight years for for Albie.
All right, uh, here's we're gonna set the final hour
of the show. We're gonna go general sports between one
and one thirty because we need to catch up on
just a couple of ASTRA thoughts, a textan thought, and
we've not taken any phone calls it again, today has
not been an easy day for it, but we can't
open the phone lines up. In fact, we would encourage

(02:00:28):
any of you that would like to call in about
anything that you've heard on the Rockets if you want
to get your thoughts in about the Texas performance against
the the Tennessee Titans, and then obviously the ASTRA is
ending of the season. We'll do a lot more of
that tourrow when you and I are back in studio,
but for the next half hour, if you want to
come in, let me give you the phone numbers a
couple of times seven one three, two, one two five
seven ninety seven one three two one two five seveney.

(02:00:50):
Then at one thirty We're gonna play them a dope
conversation to quick break, and then we'll get to Kevin
Duranton just in case any of you have been to
miss it, because it's just an opportunity. Kevin freaking n
It's just it's Kevin Freakinder, who's the most famous person
ever on there. Let's think about this during the break.
If you can't, anything comes to mind, I will come
to an answer when we come back, because I've got

(02:01:10):
a short list. Okay, seven one three two one two
five seven ninety seven one three two one two five
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(02:02:16):
Repair dot Com is The Matt Thomas Show with Ross
one o two on Sports Talk seven ninety. Matt and
Ross with you from the battles of the Toyota Center.
The house a Kadi built, actually with Steve Francis built
this right, Okay, Steve love you, but I think the

(02:02:40):
taxpayer is a Houston paid for us. Ross. How are
you look at you having a little uh treat During
the short brief break we had here on the show,
we are opening the phone lines up. I'm gonna kill
some time while you finished chewing, because you've done that
for me before. In the pass and not judge me.
So thank you very much for that. Seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five I have seven no thank you. Delicious

(02:03:05):
food here at the Tellyo This Center this year. Oh
my gosh, I'm about to Uh. There's a hot dog
with brisket on top of it. You know how much
I love briskets. I've pulled pork or brisket. I don't know. No,
I don't know. It only matter I'll eat it. Yeah,
And we've got uh again open line this half hour,
and then we're going to replay the email don't and
conversation with also Kevin Durant to close out our show today.

(02:03:25):
So that's gonna be the final half hour of the
show back tomorrow in studio where we will be hearing
from Joe Aspata and from Dan and Brown. How long
do you think it'll take? I know my own personal
answer to this. Oh, by way, we let's finish just
something wrong? Okay, you asked you the most famous person's
ever been on this show? To me, it's Nolan Ryan okay,

(02:03:48):
on a weekly basis, and we've had Roger Clemens on
before Dan Marino was on in a Super Bowl. Do
we count Super Bowl or no? Absolutely, Dan Marino absolutely
has been on a Super Bowl. Mark Slumbers is not
Mark Summers is not making it. I guess he's pretty
famous any one of the Uh uh. Carl Mecklenberg does
not like those. Oh well, hey, come on man, Okay,

(02:04:10):
so let's knock the rockets off the board because those
are all players we've normally had on because we can
hear of the game. So that's media days don't count,
is okay, Well they don't count. Kevin Durant was on
the show, Okay, So okay. So so Katie jumps to
the top of the list. I don't know, Dan Marino
is probably more. Damn Marino. Wow, that was big. I've

(02:04:32):
interviewed Barry Sanders before when I was in Minneapolis. When
I did that, and I was a literally a Kidney
candy start convinced Papali Nope, list uh, okay, I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna go Mount Rushmore right now. Yeah, Dan Marino, yes,
Nolan Ryan, yes, Kevin Durant, yep. I think Roger's on there, okay,
Roger Clement, yeah, over, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. That's

(02:04:56):
probably correct. Yeah, yeah, there's the photo of me and
Mark Summers that Why doesn't Gordy's photo photo list is
beyond me? But you know, good for him. Who's the
who's the most famous guy who canceled on us? I'll
see Bill Walton Dalton Schultz caaled on us because the
Outer Station Town solos from him. All right, we'll just

(02:05:20):
leave the list there. But I was, Okay, what were
we talking about before that? I don't know. Oh, I
was gonna ask you about how long it's going to
take you to decompress from the astro season.

Speaker 3 (02:05:31):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:05:32):
Big, I've been to decompressing for a couple of days.
I mean they were they were basically eliminated before Saturday's game, right, Yeah.
I think we will continue to First of all, everything
will roll into plays. As far as decompressing, I mean,
it feels like they've been out out of it for
a few days and I'm kind of over it already.

(02:05:52):
Is that bad?

Speaker 8 (02:05:53):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (02:05:53):
Can we tell you the most disappointing thing that happened
this past week? Yeah? From the fan perspective, because that's
what we deal with the fans. Okay, so many people
are like, I don't want to seem to make the playoffs.
That was dumb. I just I and the category was dumb.
I just don't get it.

Speaker 2 (02:06:11):
I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (02:06:12):
I Now in the NBA it's a little different because lottery,
you get lottery and eight never beat one. I mean
I'm saying never, but largely don't get no shot. But
if you get in this thing, for instance, Detroit literally
back toward it's winning the playoffs. You don't think a J.
Hinches is getting those guys fired up for a potential

(02:06:32):
long playoff run. So you would be on the road
taking on the Guardians, right if the if you want it,
if you got in the Astros I'm talking about, Yeah,
you're the final playoffs seede. Yeah, they're the they're the
least of the three division champions. Yes, so you would
be on the road taking on the Guardians. You're gonna
tell me they can't win a three game series against
the Guardians. I mean, the Guardians has been hot, but hell,
the Rangers won you know, a game Friday night. I

(02:06:53):
mean again, it's baseball. It's base playing a habit in baseball.
Like you said, NBA team seven games eight a generally
and got no shot. The other team's fully healthy baseball,
anything can happen. Man, the Diamondbacks made the World Series
in twenty twenty three. That you can catch lightning in
a bottle and then hope for the best. And the
thing with the Astros is as the playoffs went on,
they would have gotten healthier. You're done possibly coming back

(02:07:16):
on Jeremy Panna, maybe Jeremy Payne at some point, Josh
Hater perhaps at some point. Probably not, but you those
feel like those are all less than twenty five percents.
But you know, if one of them was able to
come back now and you obviously if you made the playoffs,
you did something this past week that gives you encouragement
because you were starting a series with Seattle needing to

(02:07:38):
have a five in one week. So if you got there,
you did something right. Yeah, you took care of business,
but you didn't take care of business against the Age.
You didn't take care of business losing at one game
to that to the Angels. No, you didn't three nothing
lead gone. Good job, Astros hitting was hitting was the

(02:07:59):
most of a thing to watch. One for nine with
the uns of the scoring position in that came. I
don't know, well, let's see your number six hitter was
a guy who's been in the major leagues for two weeks.
It's not in theory. If you really want to really
want to break this down, then they should never should
have been been in this to begin with. It's a miracle.

(02:08:20):
I've said that a couple of weeks ago. It's kind
of a miracle. We Ryan Gusto and Colton Gordon end
this season as third and fourth on innings pitch for
this team. And your number two and your number one
was Fromber who fell apart down the stretch. At least
he bounced back with a great start his last time out.
But your your top innings pitched it was fromber who inconsistent,

(02:08:43):
slash bad. And yeah, that's part of it. That's another
story line, is what the hell happened to the fromber
Valdez who gave you double digit straight quality starts. I
don't know, he just he just couldn't find it felt
like he couldn't find his curveball. And I mean there
were a couple classic from number blow ups, unfortunately, which
had seemed like not necessarily a thing of the past,

(02:09:04):
but they had been much much less frequent the last
year and change and yet third and innings pitched Gusto fourth,
Colton Gordon fifth, Stephen Okert. Let me take you to
let's take us the spring training in West Palm Beach.
Matt and I say, if somebody said Stephen Oker is
coming over to say, I say, what does he do?
Does he handled the lawn at the ballpark? What the heck?

(02:09:25):
That does the Stephen Okre do? Three four five in
innings pitch of the season. I would told you were Gusto,
Gordon and Ochret and oh Robber was number one and
he was terrible. You'd be like, Okay, well, how many
games under five hundred they finish? That's where you'd be.
It wasn't supposed to be. It wasn't, But nobody wants
to think that way, nor do I want to think
that way. It did because even as bad as things were,

(02:09:48):
even as bad as the series was with Seattle, where
they swept you at your home ballpark, you went into
the final week of the season still in the most
under most circumstances controlling Odstney. Because you knew that the
in Boston we're gonna beat each other up, Cleveland de Trail,
we're gonna beat each other up. You just winning forced
you to the top of the heap. You could have
even been as good as maybe the second Wald card. Yeah,

(02:10:09):
but the top three of your lineup ideally our pinion
yored on in esac and two are gone and ones
on one leg. Yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, we
just got our hopes up higher than we should have.
I think with that June in the way that they're
kind of we were literally saying to ourselves, I have
no idea how they're doing this, and then it evaporated,

(02:10:30):
and that that just really shouldn't be a shock. But
it also doesn't mean we still can't be frustrated, which
I think we can be frustrated. The guys who were
out there could have gotten it done, but they didn't.
And unfortunately, we're gonna be in a situation where we're
just gonna be watching other teams and probably the very
lase fair attitude towards the Baseball playoffs, because let me

(02:10:50):
take you guys know this, we've gone through those pregame shows.
Outside on the concourse, temperature's a little cooler, everybody's smile,
there's a huge energy. There are thirty seven dollars drinks
for to be bought and people buy them. Yeah, I don't,
but good crowds. The roof sometimes gets opened when Major
League Baseball strong arms the Astros in opening it. Yeah,

(02:11:13):
but you know what I'm saying there there there is
something about the October aura. That's the term of these
kids using a lot of these days. Yes, the aura
of of fall baseball that we've been accustomed to since
two thousand. We got got a little bit of a
twenty fifteen although they weren't home, But twenty seventeen, it's
been a lot of dik in Park. It just has Yeah,

(02:11:34):
assumes is bringing up, yeah, major League Baseball as a lottery,
but I think the Astro's chance would have went to
like point three to nine percent, So I mean, yeah,
I don't think there's any saving grace going At least
we got a lottery. Chances are open. You're not gonna
shut down everybody teams shut down everybody in the NBA
so that they can get pingpong balls. That's that's not

(02:11:55):
gonna happen in baseball. You're not gonna shut down everything
for a point thirty nine chance because asks what they
didn't and they on they still have their point nine
thirty three nine chance or whatever it is. So and
they don't. That's just only for the one pick, right,
do they do a top three type of thing, like
you're that's something I cannot possibly give you the answer two,
And I'm sorry I should. No, it doesn't matter who cares.
The Major League Baseball Draft is the not almost the

(02:12:16):
least important, but least covered. Well, well, you have to.
You could say it's the least important because they're the
least immediate. But we saw what the Astros monor league
system went through after losing two consecutive yours and not
having one point three to nine percent chance. You know what, Okay,
if they get the number one overall pick, I'll say
it's worth it. I mean get people would be excited,

(02:12:37):
but it would only be excited for those people to say, Okay,
here's the number one overall pick. We'll see in three
years now. Granted, the Astros have had some one ones
and have worked out quite well for them, Carlos Korea
being one of them, Yes, Bregnant being a second overall pick,
Phil Nevin not being one of them. Lance mccullors for
a while was pretty good as far as the draft picks, go.
He had a decent career. Yeah, all right, one thirteen

(02:12:58):
of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. If you would
like to chime in, this is our last open segment
of the day. So I know that it's been harder
to get people to come in and call, but you
are more than welcome to do so if you would
like to. It's seven one three two one two five
seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven
aunty Bottom of the hour, Email dooka conversation bottom of
the hour as well, are visit with Kevin Durant. So

(02:13:20):
if you want to get in, whether it be about
the Astros and the season as a whole. Again, we'll
spend much more time on tomorrow, but I do want
to hear from somebody. If you're out there bumping around
going hey, I got something to say about the Astros.
We will certainly welcome your call. Seven one three two
one two five seven ninety Man and Ross with you
at one nineteen on the Matter Thomas Show with Ross

(02:13:41):
Sports Talk seven Aunty. It's a properly named show. Uh
news out of the Texans, Cam Robinson's been traded to
the Cleveland Browns. That probably won't be a topic am
My show, but it could be part of the A
Team between two and six. The A Team. What a
lovely program that is. Oh my god, I cannot wait
to listen to it. As soon as I get in
the car, I won't listen. They us and discuss a
lot of tics. I'm sure it's I'm sure to be wonderful.

(02:14:03):
I'll be listening to music. Don't say that, Adams right here?
Don't you should be leaving soon? Adam, you don't mind
being late? That's it. I'm looking. They're looking for more treats.
What else in the Texans Joe Mixon uh Domico Ryans
would not clarify or give any further explanation of shocking.

(02:14:23):
It's Joe mich Did he have his foot amputated? Why?
Why is this shrouded in mystery? Why can't somebody just
come out and say we expect him in six to
eight weeks, or he'll be reevaluated in six a week like,
or he's out for the season if he's a Players
go on IR on every NFL team basically weekly, it
feels like and they're out for the season. Malik Neighbors

(02:14:43):
just tore his ACL He's out for the year. Why
is this some kind of crazy thing that needs to
be shrouded in mystery and nobody can say anything, and
then when you're asked about it, you get upset. I
just explains me. I just don't get it. Well, I mean,
teams have become way too overprotective of their injury statuses.

(02:15:07):
I got news for Demiko. As much as Joe Mixon
is a part of this team, teams still game plan
for other players besides Joe Mixon. They know who Joe
Mixon is. If he's I mean, if you you can't
really surprise a team by just throwing him out there
and going, look who we got here available to us.

(02:15:28):
That's not well allowed by rule. Yeah he's I just
don't I think that these coaches think that if you
don't say anything that gives the opponents are like, oh,
we were gonna do now we don't know if he
is gonna play or not. No, we we kind of know.
And I transparency. Look, everybody in life, Companies have secrets,

(02:15:50):
Companies have intelligence they want to keep. If you are
day to day with a player, I can kind of
russ I and kind of get that, But this isn't
data This is not week to week, this is month
and month. This could be potentially season ending. And frankly,
if you are the Baltimore Ravens, you if Joe Mixon
was all of a sudden ready to go today, they'd
be talking about him, but they're also be worried about

(02:16:12):
what he marks. Who was really good yesterday?

Speaker 2 (02:16:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:16:14):
Well, and that's the thing, like he has to be activated,
he has a practice and all that type of stuff.
So I'm just gonna go with I still just I
don't understand why this has to be some kind of
crazy uh thing that they just mum's the word on
Joe Mixon, because then they leaves us to speculate is
he out for the year? Is there some other issue?
Did you? You know there's some rumored Twitter rumors about
botch surgeries and all this other stuff. And let me

(02:16:35):
tell you that may be a rumor, but if things
are botched using your term, not mine, then I wouldn't
say a word about because there could be some legal
action involved in this. That's true, Okay, Okay, that actually
was so honestly, he's got a malpractice suit, guys, and
I can't tell you anything about it, even though we
can't guarantee that. Yeah, by them not saying anything right,

(02:16:56):
it's reasonable for us to expect that something went wrong
with something medically. It's just it's it's just weird. It's
just a weird situation. And Chubb is kind of just
a guy and what he marks looks like hopefully he
can be something. He's coming into his own and had
a good game and needs to continue to follow that up.
Because the good game was against the Titans in a
blowout scenario, so we'll see going forward. It doesn't mean
that you know whatoy Mark is about to rush for

(02:17:17):
fifteen hundred yard and stuff like that. So it's gonna
be week to week as far as what's going on there.
But it's weird, just weird that it continues to be
something and one thing to Miko gets so angry about it. Well, now,
to be fair, I thought he was completely unprofessional about
getting mad about the first time. I don't think you've
gotten mad since. Okay, good, but it was kind of
it was an odd choice to become so heavy handed

(02:17:39):
the media when he didn't need to be. Yeah, I
won't see what happens when he plays it plays. I
would also ask you this is a little bit off
the beaten track on this. When you release see they
release ce J Gardner Johnson earlier this week, uh huh.
And somebody asked, well, why'd you do that? And he goes,
we're gonna keep that in house. How much in house
should there be involved with in sports in general, That's

(02:18:04):
a good question. And I don't know. I think any
of us don't want all of our business out there
and what's going on in our personal lives exposed to
the media. But when it's when you are a professional
athlete and things are happening basically on the clock, right,
it's like personal lives and things on the clock, which

(02:18:25):
what it would be with CJ. Garter Johnathan if he's
calling out teammates and and causing ruckus and meeting rooms
and all that type of stuff. I mean, there is
it's a it's a hard line to walk straight because
if something happens at your place of work that is
non work related, you are asking for privacy on that.

(02:18:48):
I understand that, But if you are doing things, for instance,
if you and I started having nasty on air fights
and it took to off the mic, yeah, and one
of us had to go and our bosses say why
did you let Matt go? And they would We're gonna.

Speaker 2 (02:19:04):
Keep that in house.

Speaker 1 (02:19:05):
We keep that in house. I don't know. So there
aren't beat reporters asking us questions after every single game.
There aren't. I mean, we have listeners and fans of ours,
but there aren't articles that are invested in and we
appreciate that. We don't have public we don't have public
practices and injury reports and stuff. It's just a different animal.
So I just my I guess my question would have

(02:19:25):
been is if Demiko would have come up and said, look,
CJ said some things that I didn't vibe with and
I can't have it in my locker room, that would
have been like, wow, thank you for the insight instead
and again, and maybe it's not his fault because every
coach does this. You know, we always go to that

(02:19:47):
we keep things in house. But I mean, the popularity
of sports the backbone, maybe they don't need beat reporters
right now, and the internet age and all that type
of stuff. But the way that these teams grew and
thrive the way that they do was garnering interest from
fans via newspaper beat reporters television coverage and all that
type of stuff. The NFL obviously they're made men. NFL

(02:20:08):
can do whatever they want right now. But part of it,
and part of the reason your league is so big, well,
the the sole reason your league is so big. It
is because you have so many fans and so many
fans who are invested in your teams and didn't have
Fantasy football so and players and make bets and do
all that type of stuff. I mean, I think embarrassed
they brought a guy in so quickly that became such
an a hole so fast. Is that part of it too?

(02:20:29):
Oh yeah, he's gone in four weeks. Nobody planned for this,
Nobody Nick Cassario, Demko, Ryans, probably you. CJR. Gardner himself
was like, what, because let's this scenario at you. If
he goes out there and says, well, he was a
turd to while he was here, he's out, then I
guess the next question would have been, well, he was
a bad guy in other places, why do you bring
in the beginning with I guess what you do is

(02:20:50):
when you say we're keeping that in house, you're basically
keeping it just as is. You're just you're not willing
to open things up anymore than you are. Let me
squeeze in one quick call. Let's go to Steven in
Los Angeles on seven ninety before we hear from Emai Dookus. Steven,
good afternoon, Hey.

Speaker 13 (02:21:08):
Guys, A great job with the interviews today. It's been
a lot of fun listening to everybody. Thank you, Uh,
just really quickly. Uh, I know you're trying to squeeze me,
and you know, I'm just you know, hearing all of
the interviews and seeing all of the pictures and seeing
Kadi and Rockets uniform that is photoshopped, and you know,

(02:21:29):
I just gotta say it. Just it just has made
me feel giddy all day long, and I'm very excited
to see what this season has in store. Obviously, losing
Fred van Fleet is a really really big deal, a
lot bigger deal than I think some people are willing
to admit. But I still think this is a very
capable basketball team. It's gonna be a lot of fun

(02:21:50):
to watch.

Speaker 8 (02:21:51):
Matt.

Speaker 13 (02:21:51):
I look forward to listening to you and uh, go Rockets.
I'll call another time with some astros questions. Appreciate you, guys,
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:21:57):
Very much, appreciate it. Thank you Steven. Yeah, I I
can tell you this. And look, I've seen Chris Paul
come here, I've seen Russell Rustbrook come here. Uh, this
is the most excited I've but and this is my
tenth year calling the game, so this would be my
by far, my most excited. Even look, expectations are astronomically high,

(02:22:18):
but ROSSI, the Western Conference is filthy competitive, even with
even with Fred here, It wasn't a foregrone conclusion of
Rockets going all the way, but in terms of anticipation
level to pre compared off coming off of what we
did last year to what could be this year, especially
if Kevin Durant is on the floor as many times
as he can and can score and can be the
outside presence of Rockets I've been looking for. Yeah, it's

(02:22:40):
it's crazy and and like he was saying, it's making
you giddy, like the same thing like Matt when he
walked in here. It'd be cool to meet Kevin Durant.
No matter what happened or what he was. He's wearing
a freaking Rockets Ram Jersey. He's in your gear here, Houston,
freaking Texas. This is exciting And you've spent a decade
plus hating on the guy, not hating, but just like

(02:23:00):
I have never well, I know if I wanted Kevin
Duranty go two for fourteen against the Rockets, absolutely yeah,
I against the Rockets. Sure do I want to go
thirteen for fourteen in this future eighty games whatever he
plays for? Absolutely all right? Ema A Doka on the
Fred van Vliet injury, bringing Kevin Durant here and the
development of Outprin Shingoon. All straight ahead as a Matt

(02:23:23):
Thomas Show. Ross continues one twenty nine on Sports Talk
seven ninety Welcome back to the Matt Thomas Show with Ross,
broadcasting from Rockets Media Days at the Toyota Center. Great conversations,
great show all day long. Couple of big ones that

(02:23:44):
we do want to play for you. Starting with head
coach Immy A Dooka. Of course, a lot to discuss
with him, the growth of the players, the addition of
Kevin Durant, also the loss of Fred van Vliet, But
conversation started off talking about Albryn Shingoon and the big
summer that he had over in euro Basket, how he's
playing and how he's progressing. As he needs to have

(02:24:06):
some personal growth as well if the Rockets are going
to be successful this year.

Speaker 10 (02:24:10):
Yeah, overall a good summer in a lot of ways.

Speaker 8 (02:24:13):
I've seeing a lot of growth from our guys and
obviously I'll be on the big stage and some additions
and so overall happy.

Speaker 1 (02:24:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:24:21):
The injury obviously puts a little bit of sour takes
in your mouth going into camp, but we have enough
on our roster. We'll figure out how to get it done,
and we have the versatility to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:24:30):
We'll get to that in a second. I do want
to ask you about the trip to Turkey. He played
the youar the euro leagu Championships right as what they
call it? What is that competition like? And what have
you seen forgetting about that tournament? But just what have
you seen from your Alpi's offseason that has you so
bullish on him for again this year.

Speaker 8 (02:24:46):
A tremendous amount of work he put in behind the scenes,
and obviously that showed on the big stage. Continued growth
and his trajectory has continues to go up from what
I've gotten here, He's growing in every area. Obviously, made
it to All Star Game, helped us achieve what we
did last year, and had great carry over into the
summer into his work ethic and wanted to be better
and a great euro Basket tournament. So want that all

(02:25:10):
to kind of culminate into a great season here and
him continue to grow and do what he's done last
few years.

Speaker 10 (02:25:14):
And I think he's on the right path for that.

Speaker 1 (02:25:16):
Is he physically much different or kind of the same
body right now.

Speaker 10 (02:25:19):
I think his conditioning was a lot better.

Speaker 8 (02:25:22):
You know, you're playing kind of year round, and what
he did and what he had to do and shoulder
the load and carry a lot of the load for
that team. He had to be in tremendous shape. And
the physicality they played with over there, Like I said,
all that should carry over well into the season, but
it looked like no fatigue. He had a lot on
his shoulders and then obviously delivered at a high level.

Speaker 1 (02:25:42):
How collaborative is that is? How much is that you
talking to him and tell him things you want to
see from him, or him doing things on.

Speaker 8 (02:25:48):
His own a little bit of both obviously, you know
after the season you talk about areas of growth going
into your workouts in the summer, and then the staff
that was over there with him for a month plus
they're working on specific things, and then the national team
used them a certain way as well, and so there
are some similarities and the things they've done and that
we've done with him, and so you know, it's not

(02:26:09):
not familiar for him to do, but you see things
on both sides. The things he worked on obviously carried
over into this with this national team, and some things
they do you can implement here as well. And so
the bottom line is he's a young guy that's growing
at a at a rapid pace and he was rewarded
with the All Star appearance last year, and we want
him to take another step this year.

Speaker 1 (02:26:28):
Yeah, is there like constant contact or you try to
be more hands off?

Speaker 2 (02:26:31):
How do you approach that?

Speaker 8 (02:26:32):
Yes, both, it's it's your Like I said, the staff
is there with him. You know, majority of the summer.
I went over for four or five days and just
kind of kind of you know, checked them out and
spent time with him. But you see the growth, you
see the improvement, and you know, at the at the
point when he's playing with this national team, you just
let him do what he does and you don't want
to bother him. And then after the tournament's over, you

(02:26:52):
you know, we reach out and caught up and talked
about how well he's looked and how well he's played,
and the achievements he's accomplished, and so litle bit of both.
You give my time away to hear your voice all year,
but at the same time you're encouraging them and checking
in and giving them kudos for the accolades.

Speaker 1 (02:27:08):
When fans would call me, they'd say, Matt, what do
you want to see this year? And I think one
of the things you wanted to see is the growth
of Reed Shepherd in terms of more ball handling, more
time on the floor, and now the pressure is even
on him more. And I don't think you're saying now
with Fred gone, it's yours, but collectively you've been asked
multiple times about exactly how that role is going to
be filled and I think you used by committee. Is

(02:27:28):
that an appropriate term?

Speaker 10 (02:27:30):
Oh, that's the way.

Speaker 1 (02:27:31):
I mean.

Speaker 8 (02:27:31):
We have a lot of guys that can you know,
have grown and can handle and do a lot of
things to initiate offense. And that's the benefit of our
depth and versatility on our team is that you don't
have to rely on one guy. Fred shouldered the load
a lot you know, the first year, especially with the
young guys, and we want to keep our turnovers down
and get us into specific things. But I think in
the year three four for some of these guys, they've

(02:27:51):
all taken steps in that area and read going into
a second year, of the confidence that he's shown in
the offseason so far, we'll carry.

Speaker 10 (02:27:58):
Over well into the game. The caliti of the game.
I think he's improved his body and.

Speaker 8 (02:28:02):
His understanding of what it takes from the physical aspect
to be successful, and so he's worked on all those
things and this really showed up well so far. So
the opportunity is going to be there regardless with Fred
out if. Obviously we'll be expedited a little bit. But
you got Amend, you got him, you got Katie, you
got AUTP, you got different ways we can do it,
and I think we'll figure out how to get it done.

Speaker 1 (02:28:21):
Does something come go away from a men's game when
he's got the ball in his hand. If let's say
you said you're our starting point guard, you're going to
play twenty five twenty eight minutes in that spot, there's
some is there's things about his game he loses because
he's handling such other ball responsibilities.

Speaker 8 (02:28:35):
No, I think what he does he does naturally. He
gets a rebound, he pushes it. He's a one man
fast break. That's not going to change. You just have
to have a different mindset at times about awareness of
who's on the court and who you want to get
the ball to in different spots, and so that part
it's been in Fred's hands a lot, but he has
to take.

Speaker 10 (02:28:55):
That step anyway.

Speaker 8 (02:28:55):
He's played a lot of point guard in his career
and so just thinking differently at times attacking versus getting
guys involved.

Speaker 1 (02:29:02):
You mentioned the turnovers and with Amen Thompson, what is
it like for you to try to have him be
himself to try to make plays, but also you don't
want you don't want to limit him and what he
can do with his creativeness, but you also do wanted
to take care of the ball.

Speaker 10 (02:29:17):
Yeah, I mean that's an area of growth for all
the young guys and young.

Speaker 8 (02:29:19):
Guys across the board in the league for the most part,
and so you know, getting shots and not turned the
ball over is obviously has been an achilles here before
we got here, but we've really improved in that area
and that's helped us record wise for sure, and so
Fred being one of the best assistant turnover ratio guys
in the league has definitely helped us. But these guys
will have the opportunity to have taken next step now.
And so, like I said, you don't want to take

(02:29:42):
away from some of the natural things he does, but
he has to have the understanding of getting guys involved,
get us into certain sets, game time, score situations, and
some of the things he hasn't had to experience so far.

Speaker 1 (02:29:52):
Well, we'll let you go on this. I always love
the behind the scenes stuff with Katie. Were you in
the room when you got the phone call so the
deal was consummated, where you maybe on a beach, where
you at home, and take us through that and how
intimately involved you were in those conversations. You know, I
guess look at part of it is making the trade work,
but also part of it is Katie coming here. You're
going to be this missing piece or our puzzle.

Speaker 8 (02:30:12):
Yeah, we were all together when we found out it
was most likely done. You know, it was a long
process that at a lot of conversations behind the scenes,
but you know, you excited to have a guy.

Speaker 10 (02:30:23):
You miss the guys that are gone.

Speaker 8 (02:30:24):
And you know what they meant to the program or
what they've done in those years, and so it's a
little bit of sweet as far as that, but you
understand what you're adding as far as a unique talent,
and some of the areas we struggled in as far
as closing and consistent scoring, he addresses those. And so
a guy worked with a ton over the past few years,
you know, in Brooklyn and Team USA, and then obviously
played in coach against him a ton as well, and

(02:30:44):
so understanding what he does on the court, some of
the things he does in the sleep.

Speaker 10 (02:30:48):
Will obviously benefit us.

Speaker 8 (02:30:50):
But yeah, it was you know, ups and downs, and
sometimes it looked good, sometimes it didn't, and eventually got done.
But a big part is that he wanted to be
here and that's what made it work, all right.

Speaker 1 (02:31:00):
That again is I Meadoka. He's got to be a
Kidney Candy story. He's got a whole lot more to
go to a deeper team. I was just walking through it,
just saw Josh Kogie come back during Finney Smith. I mean,
Clint Capella is now going to help out some on
Knights that you don't want to use. Steven Adams as
in a back to back situation, which I don't think
you're gonna be some nights where Katie's not gonna be playing.
Only thing that's the spoil a little bit is obviously

(02:31:23):
Freddie and that starting lineup playing those minutes would have
been very valuable for this squad. Yeah, you got a
lot of wings, you got a lot of bigs. As
we had Ryan Hollins on and he astutely pointed out
kind of thin there at point guard. So they're gonna
have to figure something out, and they'd have the guys
that can do it. I think early season on, you know,
you could have eased in more of men Thompson minutes

(02:31:44):
more Reed Shepherd, ball handling operating opportunities, But the easing
end period has gone. This is gonna have to They're
gonna have to hit the ground running. And oh, by
the way, game number one, you got the defending champions
in their house. Man in Ross with you for a
final segment here on Sports Talk seven ninety we accompan

(02:32:05):
to you from a Tota center. I just saw Reed
Shepherd and gave him the what forrest on? Questions gonna
be asked about can you handle the roll? Are you
ready to take over. How's your shooting? You didn't do
any of that? I talk to him. Oh you did? Yeah,
what do you say? Do you record it? No? Later,
I was going the bathroom. Are you talking to me
in the jurnal? Well, the way to the let business

(02:32:26):
man come on? Oh no, no, no, no, no, you say,
how's it hanging? I've never asked a man how it
is hanging? Just in general, how's hanging? Matte off to
the left a little bit? All right, that's you're sick.
Nobody needs to know that. Tomorrow we're gonna make our
predictions about the World Series champions. Are you got your

(02:32:49):
bracket ready for the Bays? I'm not talking for the
rest of this year. Yeah, I know you brought up
you discussing what size that's hanging on? And no that
I didn't know. It's just a phrase, Matt, Okay, that's fair,
a phrase that we talked about. Kevin Durant, the all
time greats goats, one of the goats I put top fifteen,
and that feels fair. Right, I'm putting them top twelve.

(02:33:10):
What's up.

Speaker 9 (02:33:12):
This?

Speaker 1 (02:33:13):
I will say till I hit my grave ahead of
Steph Curry because he was the Finals MVP on those
teams better defensively. So you don't put the greatest shooter
of all time in the top ten if you I'm not.
I'm not saying you put them both in there. But
Kevin Durant's got to be ahead. And now both of
their primes they played on the same team, and Kevin
Durant was better. What's up?

Speaker 2 (02:33:31):
All right?

Speaker 1 (02:33:31):
There you go? That is the gospel, according to Ross. Hey,
let's hear from Kevin Durant and I brought up a
game that the Rockets played in Phoenix late this season,
I want to say early April, right, I didn't see
this ESPN reporting he said he plans on signing EXTENTI
with the Rockets. Yeah, rockets. Mean, while I was saying
we'll none you no, I actually said none you Okay,

(02:33:54):
don't we don't discuss, we discuss, okay meinlet's get it done. Hey, here,
Katie on the conversation that he and I had about
was the Rockets on the radar, especially after that game.
But the Rockets beat Phoenix in the late last season.

Speaker 2 (02:34:11):
Yeah for sure. I mean, because I was right around
the time that.

Speaker 11 (02:34:16):
There was so much noise around our team in Phoenix,
and I was being put in the trade machine by
every media website for the last three or four months,
and obviously Phoenix had told me that they were trading
me a month or two before that.

Speaker 3 (02:34:33):
You know.

Speaker 11 (02:34:33):
So I had my eye on teams, and I had
my eye on places that may potentially go anywhere, you know.
So yeah, I was, of course I was checking out
the Rockets, and I think everybody in the league seeing
how fast they got to this point of being a
respected team again, you know, because nobody really respected the
Rockets coming in here four or five years ago or

(02:34:56):
right after the Chris Paul James Harden era of basketball, right,
so to get that respect around the league so fast,
it just.

Speaker 2 (02:35:03):
Stood out to me. And the brand of playing ball
was really uh.

Speaker 11 (02:35:08):
It showed how how to IQ was switching defenses, playing
double big, sometimes playing small with in the game, you know,
coaches coaching every possession, and guys are focused and locked
in on his message.

Speaker 8 (02:35:19):
You know.

Speaker 11 (02:35:20):
So I was peeping all of that type of stuff
throughout the game, and I appreciated that and I wanted
to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 (02:35:25):
And so your a lob a phone called the email
and say, hey, we can do this work. You guys
work with each other with national team. You did the
next thing for a while.

Speaker 2 (02:35:34):
Yeah, I didn't directly call you don't think you probably
could because of the league rules.

Speaker 1 (02:35:39):
I didn't direct your role follower your role follower exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:35:44):
I go by the book.

Speaker 11 (02:35:47):
But it was, of course it got out there that
we both might be interested in one another, and it
happened pretty quickly after that, And uh it was I
heard some rumors that Houston wanted to get involved, that
the trade headline too, and Phoenix had called around the
league saying they wanted to see what my market was. So,
you know, you hear all of these rumors, and you know,

(02:36:11):
where there's smoke, there's a little fun. You know, that's
fire for sure.

Speaker 3 (02:36:14):
You know.

Speaker 11 (02:36:14):
So once once everything could be you know, agents could
talk to GM's and coaches and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:36:21):
It just kind of worked out pretty fast.

Speaker 1 (02:36:23):
Do you have any specific I mean, what is your attitude,
what is your mindset coming into the season, coming into
a new situation and getting traded. I know, you know
there's obviously a lot of noise, and you're somebody who
doesn't try to pay attention to that at all. So
what is the what is your purpose and motivation for
this this upcoming season that's changed? Oh man? Just to.

Speaker 2 (02:36:44):
Man, I'm a simple guy. Man.

Speaker 11 (02:36:45):
I just try to focus on the craft every day,
try to be better than I was yesterday. I know
that I could play a huge part in what we
do as a team, but we are a team and
we all have to bring our best every day in
order for us to reach out full potentially as a group.
So I try to focus on what I do the
best and try to bring that to the group, and

(02:37:06):
also be as a resource to somebody who.

Speaker 2 (02:37:08):
Has some IQ, who has some experience.

Speaker 11 (02:37:11):
So whenever anybody needs to walk or talk through anything
on the court, I try to be there for him
as well.

Speaker 2 (02:37:16):
But I don't try to be too overbearing.

Speaker 11 (02:37:18):
I just try to go out there and play my game,
work on my game and bring that to the group
and be a good teammate. My phone always opened, my
door always open to come over and hang out, you know.
So I just try to trying to be coachable every
day and every day and learn and you know so,
I just try to be a teammate.

Speaker 1 (02:37:35):
Man.

Speaker 11 (02:37:35):
I know I've accomplished a lot in this league, and
people look at me a certain way, but I really
really take pride and I really got consciously try to
be just one of the guys every day.

Speaker 1 (02:37:46):
I need you to beat two year old former teams.
We can't beat the Warriors, and you know that directly
beat us one time and then Oklahoma City is they're
doing a lot of bragging up there right now. So
it's been incredible for you, my man. I have called
many of your games from a distance, and to see
you here wearing rockets, scared of it's frankly surreal.

Speaker 2 (02:38:07):
To the book it is.

Speaker 11 (02:38:07):
It is walking in and usually your your dad route
is that quick left to that business in locker room,
and to walk past it and go into their Rockets locker.
We didn't went through some battles playing against the Rockets
and flying into the city nervous to play these guys
in this building and the playoffs, you know, so to
have those battles and to finally be here and down

(02:38:30):
the Rockets uniform, it is pretty surreal.

Speaker 1 (02:38:33):
It is a team that's young, but it's got the
veteran guys. Clint's here now, you got DFS. You know
Fred will be obviously from a distance, but you know babysitting.
I mean, this is a team that is one fifty
two games when took Golden Stax to seven. I mean
there are there are clearly expectations, and that comes to
no surprise to you.

Speaker 11 (02:38:50):
Yeah, I mean expectations can do two things, you know,
either make a man out of you, or you know,
you can run into the corner and curl up, you know.
So I on teams where you know, guys did both
guys and rose to the casion and some and I've
been on teams where we didn't know how to handle
the expectations that come with being considered a championship contender,

(02:39:11):
you know. So that noise comes with being a good team,
and it's gonna get loud throughout the season. Any bad
play or loss or bad body language or anything, and
it'll be under a microscope and it'll be dissected. And
the great teams, regardless, block out all the noise and
keep the main thing the main thing, and focus on

(02:39:31):
one another. So that's a small element that people don't
talk about in the journey, But I'm looking forward to
seeing what that'll be like for this team because they
never had these type of expectations, these you know, these
young guys never played on these expectations before, so I'm
looking forward to see what that makes, how that makes
us as a group.

Speaker 1 (02:39:49):
All right, last question, long, long, go ahead, Happy birthday
age thirty seven. Do you have you had any conversations
or talk about Gas playing full eighty two?

Speaker 2 (02:39:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:39:57):
And guests, no playing playing a fully in a season?
Is that your goal or or what are you trying
to do to as far as manage the season.

Speaker 11 (02:40:04):
I'll talk about managing the season. I just got there
and just play. Yeah, I expect to play eighty two
for forty eight minutes a night. That's how That's how
I'm looking at it. Obviously that's not that's not realistic,
but you know, I kind of keep my mind focused
on playing every game and like load managing and obviously

(02:40:24):
I'll listen to the training staff that they figured they
see is you know something that will worked for me?
But for the most part, I'm trying to I'm trying
to go there and play as much as I can.

Speaker 2 (02:40:33):
Man all right, I'm.

Speaker 1 (02:40:35):
Good with that. You can do as much as he
wants to be ready in late May and early June.
How about that. Thank you to the Rockets for their
great assistants all throughout the course of the day. Up
next to is client and it's Wexer downtown at the
Where they Where are they? I don't know. We're downtown.
Where are they? I've got all the equipment. Yeah, they
can't mail in the next four hours, but they won't try.

(02:40:56):
It's part of the talk to all tomorrow. A tech
here on seven ninety Way